The Last Thing I Expected To Happen
by ARogueByAnyOtherUsername
Summary: (auverse BD2, sisterfic, see notes inside) Ara Swan is coming back to Forks to escape a scary and bad relationship she's just gotten out of. Jacob Black's finally reluctantly returning from Canada, after having spent almost 7 months there to get over his feelings for Bella. There is a newborn army on the horizon and the Volturi on the scene. Will they make it through everything?
1. caveat lector

**CAVEAT LECTOR:**

_Obviously, if I owned Twilight, I'd be one hell of a lot richer than I am currently. So we should all be able to logically deduce then, that I do not own Twilight and I only wish I owned Jacob Black, -__coughing to cover having just said that-_

_I do however, own my original person, and the plot deviations I'm devising to make this story work as smoothly as humanly possible._

_I'm not doing this to make money, nor am I doing this to better myself as a writer. I don't even really fancy myself a great writer, to begin with. Reviews are __**appreciated**__, but I'm not really interested in flames or critiques. Just being truthful._

_Yes, this is a sisfic. But it's not the usual sisterfic, either. For one thing, my original person hasn't been an integral part of the series, until the very start of Breaking Dawn,Pt 2. There are reasons for this, of course. And did I mention she kinda maybe sorta hates her older sister?_

_Because she does. Yeah.. It's gonna be that kind of story. So if you like Bella, you might want to stop reading after this page. Because I personally didn't like the character, and I'm most likely going to bash her to oblivion._

_I also hate the fact that Jacob imprinted on her kid. I mean what if the psycho and co dependent gene's contagious? Poor guy. The whole imprinting on a kid thing sort of threw me off, so yeah, I'm gonna fix that._

**INFORMATION:**

**SETTING**

_Start of Breaking Dawn Pt II_

**RATING**

_T/M for swearing, violence and occasional dark subject content, sex eventually, and a good bit of fluff here and there also._

_Did I mention swearing? Because yeah, that'll happen a lot._

**OOC WARNINGS**

_!slightlymorepsychoticcodependent Bella_

_!nonangstyJacob_

_!noninterestedinBella Jacob_

_!angryBella_

_!angryJacob_

_!JealousBella_

_!alpha/dominantJacob_

**CHANGES MADE TO STORY **

_Obviously, Renee and Charlie's breakup timeline's been screwed with. They stayed together until Bella and OP were around 6 and 5 respectively. Then Renee left because she just could not handle the climate of Washington anymore. She moved to California, raised the girls there. Bella and OP did still come to Charlie's for visits, however, they stopped when they were around 11 and 10, Bella because she hated the weather, and OP because she had summer camp,friends she liked hanging out with over the summer, etc and she didnt like having to be stuck with her big sister all the time, as Charlie liked to make them try and get along, making them play with one another, try and make their relationship as siblings stronger._

_Jacob never came back to Forks/La Push when he left after getting Bella's wedding invite. Therefore, he's still gone for all the events following her wedding as well as not attending her wedding.__**SO HE DOES NOT IMPRINT RENESMEE, BECAUSE I JUST DON'T WANT IT TO HAPPEN THAT WAY FOR ONE THING, AND ANOTHER, HE SEES OP FIRST!**__It's been almost 6 or 7 months by the start of the story, and the only reason he does come back again, is because the pack has to fight against the Volturi and Sam needs him to become a secondary alpha to train some of the younger shifters, as there are currently more shifters than he can possibly handle leading alone. _

_In my story, Bella is almost 20 when she's turned and was 19 when she married Edward. If it matters. This makes my OP 19 and just starting college. The way I did this, is I moved Bella's wedding a year or so. Edward took longer coming back to Forks initially, so that threw the timeline off a good bit, we'll just say that happened and leave it alone. __**If this offends/upsets anyone, sorry. This is how I wanted it to go.**_

**PAIRINGS/CHARACTERS USED**

_Jacob x OP_

_Bella x Edward_

_Cullens, in smallest dosage possible_

_Volturi, in smallest dosage possible_

_Shifters, in large obscene amounts, I love the werewolves, to be honest._

_random appearances by everyone, though this is more or less just a love story for my favorite shifter so it's __**Jacob-centric**__._

**OTHER WARNINGS**

_**tons of Bella bashing**__. I just hate her, really. I never understood how the hell Edward didn't run screaming when she dug her hooks into him in the first place, and when she used Jacob essentially to cope with Edward's leaving, I was beyond done with her shit. I also didn't like how she claimed to be this wise and older than her years girl, yet she did stupid shit like hibernate for nearly 5 months over a breakup.. I mean really? You're going to lose your shit because he dumped you? When he was that toxic for you to begin with?_

_Sorry, rant over. That just frustrated the crap out of me, really._

**ORIGINAL CHARACTER INFORMATION:**

**| NAME AND NICKNAME |**

_Arabella Mae Swan_

_Ara is her nickname, she goes by it more than she does Arabella_

**|AGE AND BIRTHDAY|**

_at start of story Ara is 19._

_Birthday is February 13th_

**|HOMETOWN AND CURRENT RESIDENCE|**

**_Ara was born in Forks, Washington_**

**_Lived in Tampa Bay, Florida, moved to Miami to attend the University of Miami_**

**_Currently resides in Forks, Washington, with her father, though she'll be getting her own place somewhere in the story._**

**|BIOGRAPHY/HISTORY|**

_Arabella Mae Swan is the youngest sister and the second child in the Swan family. She was born February 13__th__ at just a little after midnight and she lived in Forks with her father and mother until she was 5, when her parents split up. Her mother took sole custody of the girls for whatever reason, and moved them to California._

_She visited her father on holidays and during the summer every year after, until she was 10. The reason the visits stopped was mostly because Ara started spending more time with her friends and stuff during the summer, and had she kept going to her father's house, she'd have kept being forced into spending time with her older sister, who she's never actually gotten along the greatest with._

_After she graduated from high school in Tampa Bay a year ahead of schedule due to advanced placement courses she'd taken since her freshman year, she promptly moved to Miami where she settled into college life, going out to parties and nightclubs, other typical stuff, which is how she wound up meeting a boy named Ben who for all intents and purposes seemed like a great guy to begin with. When his true colors came out, she decided that maybe a change of scenery was in order, and now, she's living in Forks with her father (for the moment) while attending PAU and working part time at the mall in Port Angeles, at a bookstore and Victoria's Secret as a cashier._

**|RELATIONSHIPS TO OTHER CANON CHARACTERS|**

_Daughter to Renee and Charlie Swan_

_Sister to Bella Swan-Cullen_

_Sister in law to Edward Cullen_

_Aunt to Renesmee Cullen_

**|OCCUPATIONS PAST & PRESENT|**

_worked after school at a fitness center where she helped teach a yoga and a dance class for beginners (high school, senior year)_

_worked as a lifeguard (recurring, did this through high school, continued into college) at the beach, both in Tampa Bay and in Miami._

_Currently works at Books A Million and Victoria's Secret in Port Angeles mall_

_Will work at the hospital when she's done with college, by the middle of the story, she'll become an intern for a nursing program which will lead to that._

**|RELATIONSHIP STATUS|**

**_just breaking up with Ben Miller, a guy she met while attending the University of Miami and the reason she fled back to Forks to the safety of her father._**

**|IMPRINT OF|**

**_Jacob Black_**

**|LOOKS AND SUCH|**

_Hair Color: Light Brown with Dirty Blonde highlights_

_Hair Style: Is naturally curly, she usually wears it up or halfway up at least when she doesn't have time to straighten it. She hates her hair being curly, so she takes great pains to have it seen in its 'natural' state._

_Eye Color: Light Brown_

_She wears glasses, they're perscription and she can't see well without them. _

_Height: 5'3, she's a shade shorter than her older sister_

_Weight: Approximately 130 lbs_

_Body Type: Curvy while being toned and reasonably in shape._

_Style of dress: She's definitely not afraid to showcase her body, but she's sort of the less is more type of girl. If she shows her legs, she wears a decent length shirt. She prefers fitted pants and jeans, sundresses and skirts, high heels for the most part, and she loves fashion. She likes dressing up and she loves makeup and perfume, so she rarely goes without them. If you have to peg a style for her, she's into vintage/sexy type clothes. She's definitely the girlier of herself and her sister._

**|FEARS AND QUIRKS|**

_is afraid of spiders, snakes, mice, extreme darkness, small spaces, heights, really bad weather and violently loud arguments. She's also afraid of sudden movements, or being touched suddenly, it makes her jump and flinch._

_She drums her fingers when she's bored, bites her nails when she's thinking, bites her lower lip when she's nervous or upset, and or worried. She taps her feet when she's feeling impatient, and she swears and throws things when in an argument if the argument gets bad enough._

**|LIKES AND DISLIKES|**

**_Likes:_**

**_the colors pale pink, baby blue and violet purple_**

**_makeup_**

**_high heels_**

**_doing yoga_**

**_dancing_**

**_sleeping late_**

**_walking barefoot on the beach_**

**_swimming_**

**_italian food_**

**_horror movies, even though they terrify her_**

**_oldies music_**

**_hard rock music_**

**_soap operas_**

**_reading, mostly erotic romantic novels_**

**_flirting_**

**_s'mores_**

**_fall_**

**_christmas_**

**_makeup_**

**_motorcycles, even though she's scared to death of getting on one_**

**_lingerie_**

**_bubble baths_**

**_going out to nightclubs or parties_**

**_spending time with her father_**

**_babysitting Renesmee_**

**_cross word puzzles_**

**_peppermint_**

**_Dislikes:_**

**_guys calling her babe or doll, or any other petname than her name if she doesn't know them_**

**_spending too much time around her sister and her brother in law_**

**_being too hot at night when she's trying to sleep_**

**_waking up early_**

**_people who try and multitask while driving_**

**_being teased by her sister_**

**_having her hair ruffled_**

**_feet_**

**_cats_**

**_burning food_**

**_losing things or misplacing something she needs_**

**_leftover pizza, especially if it's cold and not warmed up_**

**_going out without her makeup on_**

**_being seen with her hair down, she hates it, thinks it's too 'kinky'_**

**_guys who seem obsessive or possessive and controlling_**

**_being labeled as a nerd, being labeled as anything really_**

_**FAVORITE THINGS|**_

_**COLOR**_

_pale pink_

_pale blue_

_pale purple_

_**BOOK**_

_The Shining_

_50 Shades Of Gray_

_**MOVIE**_

_Friday the 13__th__,_

_The Shining,_

_A Knights Tale, _

_Pretty Woman,_

_Pitch Perfect,_

_Fast & Furious series, _

_Steel Magnolias_

_Fried Green Tomatoes_

_Romeo + Juliet_

_Titanic_

_Sixteen Candles_

_Pretty In Pink_

_The Breakfast Club_

_An Officer And A Gentleman_

_The Notebook_

_Crybaby_

_Grease_

_Grease II_

_**SONG**_

_Last Kiss – Pearl Jam_

_Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay- Otis Redding_

_Pretty Woman- Roy Orbison_

_Ramble On, Communication Breakdown, Black Dog – Led Zepplin_

_Riders On The Storm, Break On Through, Love Her Madly – The Doors_

_Dream On, Sweet Emotion, Love In An Elevator, Cryin, Amazin, Crazy -Aerosmith_

_In & Out Of Love, Bed Of Roses, Always, Livin On A Prayer – Bon Jovi_

_Talk Dirty To Me, Fallen Angel, Every Rose Has It's Thorn – Poison_

_Peggy Sue – Buddy Holly_

_Viva Las Vegas, Suspicious Minds- Elvis Presley_

_Zoot Suit Riot_

_Great Balls Of Fire – Jerry Lee Lewis_

_Paint It Black, Start Me Up – The Rolling Stones_

_Stay With Me, Do Ya Think I'm Sexy – Rod Stewart_

_Against The Wind, Turn The Page, Beautiful Loser, Old Time Rock N Roll – Bob Seger_

_Whiskey In The Jar, Unforgiven I II III, Fade To Black – Metallica_

_Walkin After Midnight- Patsy Cline_

_Mercedes Benz, Me and Bobby McGee, Take Another Little Piece of My Heart-Janis Joplin_

_**BAND**_

_too many to list though it has to be said she prefers classic rock and oldies to most of the music that's on now._

_**FOOD**_

_chicken alfredo_

_pasta al dente_

_shrimp scampi_

_ham and swiss subs_

_macaroni and cheese_

_cheesecake_

_chocolate cake_

_brownies_

_chocolate chip pancakes, whipped cream_

_strawberries with white chocolate_

_**DRINK**_

_flavored water_

_sweet tea_

_dr. pepper_

_**FLOWER**_

_wild roses_

_orchids_

_dark red and white roses_

_**PART OF A GUY'S BODY**_

_eyes_

_sucker for a guy with muscles_

_long hair_

_stubble_

_**PART OF HER OWN BODY**_

_she definitely likes her lips and legs_

_**ACTOR**_

_James Dean_

_Vin Diesel_

_Johnny Depp_

_**ACTRESS**_

_Audrey Hepburn_

_Marilyn Monroe_

_Julia Roberts_

**|SECRETS AND DESIRES|**

_Wanted to be a model or a professional ballroom designer and a fashion designer as a child_

_Wants to have kids, has had a miscarriage_

_wants to fall in love with the right guy, but she's afraid that won't happen because she's too afraid to open up and get hurt or be tricked again._

_Is afraid of her former boyfriend Ben_

_Is afraid of her in laws_

_knows that there are shapeshifters and vampires thanks to Bella's telling her about Renesmee and about Edward and the others, but keeps it to herself. It freaks her out._

_**Sometimes, Fate Takes The Long Way Around To Fix Broken Hearts**_

_They say it's always when you least expect it that you find real love. But what does Fate do when it's two people like Jacob Black and Ara Swan who have given up on the whole concept in happily ever after, or are too afraid to try and find their own happily ever after?_

_You throw them together, of course, which is what happens when Ara returns home to Forks to escape the worst relationship she's ever been in and Jacob reluctantly returns, after having spent the better part of almost 7 months in Canada, mending a broken heart over Bella,to help Sam prepare the pack, which is now split into two large groups, to take on the Volturi and an army of newborn vampires that have risen recently in the wake of the fall of Victoria's army._

_Neither of them was expecting things to happen this way, but sometimes, the best things happen when you least expect them, right?_

_This is how Fate took the long way around to fix two broken hearts and make two people who belonged together all along come together._


	2. life altering decisions and realizations

_The first thing she did when she was allowed to leave the hospital was go to the airport and buy a one way ticket to Washington. It was something she should have done a year ago, but she'd been blinded by the fuzzy haze that love so often casts on girls her age. _

_"__Here goes nothing." Ara muttered as she walked out of the hospital and called for a cab to pick her up. While waiting in the pouring rain, she thought back on everything she'd allowed herself to get caught up in, made herself a mental promise there and then that it wasn't happening, ever again._

_The cell phone rang in her hands and she rolled her eyes, hitting ignore. She had no interest in talking to her older sister at the moment, they'd never actually gotten along if she really thought long and hard about it. Of course, they were as different as night and day, but that went without saying.. Sometimes, her older sister just irritated the living piss out of her._

_"__Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks." she muttered to herself bitterly as she bit her lip and called her father's home phone number, leaving a short message, "I'm.. I'm coming home, Dad. I'll explain when I get there. I love you.",__trying not to cry as she did so. Going back to Forks, going back to Florida even, those two things signified her ultimately failing at being an adult, to her, it meant she couldn't handle the real world, and she was running from it._

_It made her as weak as she thought her sister was in years past and she hated this, it angered her at herself. _

_Charlie was sitting in his living room with Billy Black, talking about their children, about their lives lately, how weird it felt to be alone in their homes now, when the call came in and his machine picked it up. He'd have answered if he'd known it was his youngest child, but he hadn't been near the caller id, so he'd let the machine get it, thinking it a telemarketer or something._

_After all, since Bella had gotten married, moved out, she barely called, and Ara hardly called to begin with, she tried to handle her problems completely alone, like she'd done her entire life. She visited and wrote, called every now and then to check in but she hadn't in a while._

_Charlie blamed her latest boyfriend Benjamin for this deep down, though he kept his nose out of it, she hardly called to begin with, he didn't want her to completely cut out her family. He often found himself wondering why she did this, and deep down, he suspected that she felt like she didn't matter to either himself or her mother, and she couldn't really be around her sister for longer than 5 minutes without fighting with Bella.. So she mostly kept things to herself._

_He hit play on the message, and he felt himself growing concerned when he heard Ara's message. She said she was coming back to Forks, that she just wanted to try living there for a while, but beyond that, nothing.. It was her voice that alarmed him._

_He knew as her father that something was really, really wrong, if she were going to come back to him, or go to her mother in Florida. She tried to avoid doing either thing as much as humanly possible. And she'd sounded scared, hurt and very depressed just now on the message she left him._

_Nothing like the bold and confident, outgoing and soft hearted daughter he knew and loved._

_Billy looked at Charlie and then said "Spoke too soon, huh?" as he studied his old friend. Charlie was about to call her back, but he put the phone down and said quietly, "Yeah. Something's wrong if she's coming here to stay. As soon as she was done with high school, as far as she was concerned, she was an adult and she couldn't get out on her own fast enough. Now she's coming back. I hope it's nothing serious."_

_Billy nodded and said quietly, "I just wish Jake would pick up a phone and call me or something. He hasn't called or even written in almost 7 months. I have no idea where the kid is, and that worries me. He wasn't like this.." Billy trailed off as Charlie nodded and said "Ara's never been through anything she couldn't handle on her own. Her calling me now has me worried. She's never let me handle anything for her before."_

_"__I'm sure it was fine. Maybe she's like my Rachel, she just got homesick." Billy said as Charlie shook his head and said "Nope, I can feel it. Something's really wrong this time, or she wouldn't have sounded the way she did when she left that message." _

_The two men fell silent, and got back to watching the game, both worried about their youngest children, for entirely different reasons._

_And in her cottage in the woods, Bella glared at the phone in her hand and grumbling, she turned to Alice and said "It's no use. Ara is not going to pick up the phone for me."_

_"__So we'll call your dad and give him a heads up, let him know what she's gone off and gotten herself mixed up in. The point is, Bella, someone has to do something or what I saw will happen, if it hasn't already." Alice said as she fixed her warm brown eyes on her sister in law firmly._

_"__But what's me calling going to do? I mean she hates me, she always has for some reason or another. And she barely has anything to do with our parents.." Bella countered, trying to put off calling her baby sister, trying to avoid the inevitable argument that would result, if Ara actually picked up the phone._

_Meanwhile, in Canada, Jacob looked at the flight schedule while standing in a crowded Canadian airport. He thought back to the reason he'd left Washington in the first place and sighed. He was over it now, of course, he'd had time away from the situation and he now realized that he'd only fixated on Bella all along because the one he really wanted wasn't around._

_He should have known it then, when he thought about Ara constantly, when he wondered what she was doing, if she was happy, why she didn't move in with her father when Bella had a few years ago. Instead, he'd chosen to ignore what he knew now, and he'd focused all his energy on trying to make Bella fall for him, choose him._

_"__I'll help Sam, then I can leave again. It is my duty." he muttered quietly as he raked his hands through his hair, which he'd grown back out, and looked again at the flight schedule, picking the flight he wanted to get on. "It couldn't hurt to see Dad and at least let him know I'm fine, I'm happy and I got over her, finally. The other thing, I'll just have to deal with on my own, because if Ara really is my imprint, and this just isn't some wild conspiracy theory I've formed to give myself hope, I'll never see her, because she hasn't been to Forks in years now." he muttered to himself, a nearby person looking at him as if he were slightly mental for mumbling to himself._

_After he'd gotten the ticket, a round trip, just in case he got there and he wanted to leave when this was all over with, he flopped into a chair in the lobby, sat watching a few hours of mindless television._

_And in Florida, Ara hurriedly packed her things. She wanted to be completely and totally gone before Ben got bailed out of jail and came back to finish what he'd tried to do two nights before. "I'm never going to be this stupid again. Love only leads to pain." she muttered as she grabbed her bags, the few things she cared to keep, and took one last look at her 'independent and adult' life._

_"__Adult.. What a joke." she muttered to herself as she shut the door behind her, and walked down to the lobby of the building, waiting on her cab. Her cell phone rang again, and she rolled her eyes, hitting ignore, shoving it back into her pocket._

_She definitely was not in the mood to have her older sister rub her 'perfect' life in her face right now, and knowing Bella, that's what she was calling to do. In her own way, Bella had always been that way. She'd always managed to make everyone put her first._

_By the time they were 10, Ara had pretty much realized that she'd be better off just doing things for herself and handling her own problems. That's when the relationship she had with her family had started to strain, she'd started to distance herself._

_When she'd graduated, early, she'd moved to Miami. Now she wondered if she'd been ready to 'leave the nest', because the first thing she'd done, when on her own, was manage to find the single worst man in Miami, if not all of America, and stupidly fall head over heels in love with the guy._

_By the time she'd realized her mistake, it was too late, and she'd had a year of his obsessive and possessive behavior, not to mention the different forms of abuse he liked to do to her, and a miscarriage under her belt. If she were really an adult, if she were really as 'smart' as she pretended to be, she'd never have gotten involved with anyone, to begin with._

_But, apparently, she hadn't been._

_On her way to the airport, she tried calling her father one more time. It went to his answering machine, and for a split second, she wondered why she was even bothering to go home to either of her parents.. Apparently, they all had better things to do, as usual._

_She'd just boarded the plane when she felt her phone going off again. This time, it was her father, returning her call, but she quickly texted him that she was on a plane and couldn't talk, then shut her phone off._

_And she spent the remainder of the few hours in flight trying to figure out where exactly she'd went so completely wrong in her own life. And kicking herself for being so harsh with her older sister, for distancing herself from her family._

_But she hadn't wanted to be the invisible kid, and she damn sure hadn't wanted to make things any harder on her parents than they were already. They had more important things to deal with, she'd learned to deal with that at a fairly young age._

_The sad thing, however, is how wrong she was about everything, and how she didn't realize it just yet._

_Charlie tried calling her again, but got a text explaining she hadn't been able to answer, she'd just gotten on a plane. And Billy called a few minutes later, telling Charlie that Jacob just texted, told him that he too was finally coming home._

_As Charlie hung up the phone, his eyes caught on a picture of him with his daughters, and he noticed something, for the first time. Even in that picture, Ara seemed to stand off to the side alone. He found that nagging at him and made a mental note to talk to the girls when Ara was back home._

_Maybe it wasn't too late to fix things that he felt might have went horribly wrong in their childhood. As a father, he had to at least hope it wasn't._


	3. there is no such thing as coincidence 1

An elderly woman nudged him awake as his flight landed and he rubbed his eyes, looked around. He'd been sleeping good, better than he had in months, he couldn't remember exactly what he'd been dreaming about, but he could remember who was in the dream, and that prompted him to make a mental note to at least ask Charlie where she was living now, since she apparently was not living in Tampa Bay with Renee and Phil.

"We're landing, son." the woman said. Jacob nodded, thanking her, grabbing his only luggage, a beaten down book bag that he'd used for school, which held his few outfits and a few other things he'd taken with him when he ran off a few months before. He stood and stretched, walked off the plane, looking around, getting his bearings. Rachel and Paul were supposed to be picking him up, he'd already texted his sister before boarding the plane back in Canada.

Meanwhile, on her own flight, Ara was being prodded awake by some heavily tattooed guy who'd sat next to her, listened to some painfully loud death metal the entire flight. Granted, he hadn't tried talking to her, or flirting with her, which was a welcome thing, but she didn't honestly blame the guy either. The bruise around her left eye hadn't healed yet, and it was fading, but still a very nasty purplish yellow. Makeup covered it a little, but not much, and she had a few scrapes on her face from the fight she and her former boyfriend had been in 3 days prior.

She sighed as she looked in the small antique crystal studded compact mirror she kept in her purse and then muttered, "And here comes the fun part.. Explaining what the literal hell I got myself involved in. This is gonna go over so well." dryly.

"We're landing now." the guy said curtly as she nodded and stood, wiggled the stilettos she was wearing back onto her feet, trying to will the jelly like feeling out of her legs as she walked off the plane, and emerged in the lobby of the crowded Port Angeles airport.

She'd just taken out her phone to text her father, let him know her plane landed safely, and she was renting a car to drive to his place, when she turned a corner, collided with someone, damn near derailing them both. She looked up and was about to scowl and mutter something harsh when she choked on a cough.

Jacob Black, a former childhood friend of hers, and her first real crush, though nobody, to this date knew that, stood in front of her.

He'd taken off after a scent that bewitched his nose, and he'd been following it intently, wondering if what he thought was happening was happening, when he turned the corner, and the scent trail stopped. And it stopped at someone he thought he'd never see again in a million years.

Everything that'd hurt him in the past, every stupid thing he'd done to try and make Bella want and love him disappeared, and everyone else in the crowded airport lobby disappeared but Ara. He couldn't stop staring at her, taking in how much she'd changed, yet how much she was still the same quiet girl she'd been the last time he'd seen her, when they were both 10.

"Arabella?" he asked as she managed to say quietly, "Jake? W-what are you doing here?"

Personally, Ara figured that Jacob would wind up with her big sister somehow, so she'd always been surprised and amused when instead of that happening, Bella fell for probably the single most creepy and disgusting guy on Earth, while being deep down blissfully happy, because that left the door open for her, if she ever got the nerve.

She never thought she'd get the nerve, or the chance even, so she'd probably given up on that around the age of 13.

He noticed the bruise and the few scrapes that the carefully applied makeup wasn't hiding and before she could say whatever else she'd been about to say, he blurted out stiffly, "What the hell happened to your face? Who did that?"

Ara groaned inwardly. This is where it got complicated for her, after all. Did she try and excuse what her bastard of an ex had done to her, or did she admit to it, then endure the pitying looks she received as a result? Or did she pretend momentary deafness and ignore the question, change the subject in a hurry to something much safer, something that made her feel less pent up anger and hostility towards the person that'd done these things to her, and herself?

She sighed and said quietly, "I'd rather not talk about it." as he looked at her a moment, eyes baring into her, almost with a searing hot intensity. She thought to herself, _'I'm never admitting what I let myself get into. And if that asshole shows up here, I'm going to go to prison for murder. I can handle myself and I'm going to do it. Like always.'_

Jacob blinked as something really, really weird happened and he could have sworn that for a split second she said something aloud, while knowing perfectly well, she hadn't. She was still standing there quietly, eyes scanning the crowded airport as if she were looking for possible exits or waiting on someone. He asked casually, "Did you say something just now?"

"Nope, why? It might have been the loudspeaker, I think they just announced a layover or a plane landing or something.." Ara muttered, biting her lower lip as she looked at him, curiousity in her gaze. Jacob shrugged and forced himself to manage a smile as he muttered "You're probably right."

That'd been weird, to hear that. Maybe she'd murmured it and he'd heard her mumbling to herself? He shrugged off what'd just happened and put it down to that having to have been what it was, but gazed at her intently, then said "What brings you back?"

Ara shrugged and said quietly, "Just coming home. I just wanted to see my dad." while she thought to herself quietly, _'I'd rather be all alone with my family than all alone with a complete monster.'_ twisting a strand of light brown hair around her fingertips idly as she looked up at him.

Jacob watched her a moment, it'd just happened again. But he shoved it out of his head. Maybe she was just mumbling, she'd always been kind of shy around him, so maybe she was whispering this stuff to herself and he was hearing her.

He was a shape shifter after all, he could on occasion hear a lot better than the average male.

Ara looked at him, the shock of just how much he'd grown and how much hotter he'd gotten hitting her like a punch to the gut. She sucked in a breath, he looked at her with a slightly amused expression and she shrugged, playing it off.

"So.. Who's picking you up?" she asked, doing anything at this point to ease the slightly heated tension between the two of them. She fanned herself a little, it felt like they were in a boiler room, standing right next to a damn furnace currently, which was weird, because it was December in Washington, there was no way in hell it was supposed to feel this warm, even with the building's heater cranked all the way up.

She licked her lips as she looked at him, wishing she'd grabbed a soda on her way past the vending machines now, suddenly thirstier than she'd ever been in her life.

"My sister and Paul. They're kinda engaged.." Jacob said simply as he asked, "What about you?" looking at her, licking his lips as he raked a hand through his long black hair.

"I'm.. I'm renting a car. I have to think." Ara said quietly as she let her eyes dart around the room, choosing not to look into his eyes at this particular moment, not wanting him to think something was up or anything. He looked at her and then offered, "You can ride with us? I mean I'm pretty sure Paul won't mind another person.."

"Thanks, but I'm gonna just rent a car." Ara said quietly as she managed a smile, trying to fool him and keep him from asking too many questions, because for some reason, the longer she stood here, talking to him, the more she wanted to just break down and tell him everything that'd happened, everything she'd been stupid enough to let herself get into.

And she didn't want that. She wasn't letting someone have that power over her, ever again.

_'Something's really, really wrong with her. She wasn't this skittish around me before.. Maybe she hates me or something? God I hope not, not given what I realized about how I felt about her while I was gone, getting my shit together for the past few months.'_ Jacob thought to himself, leaning against the wall near her, but not too close. He got the feeling that if he stood too close, she'd suddenly panic and bolt for the door or something, and that was the absolute last thing that he wanted, given the fact that he'd just imprinted on her, and he wanted this to work out, he wanted and needed her, he realized this now, it'd been her all along.

Not her idiot sister Bella. It'd been her. Bella was just there, it was just convenient. Ara was the one who'd chosen not to move back to Forks. So essentially, he'd began telling himself when he figured this all out a few months into being gone, he'd just projected his feelings for one sister, onto another.

Now knowing his theory was right, and Ara had been his imprint, not Bella like he'd thought at one point in time, he knew he'd been right in his reasoning.

He shouldn't have done it, but now he knew why he did it.

Ara blinked as she could have sworn she heard him whispering something and raking her hand through her hair, she looked up at him with a raised brow, because for the most part, what he whispered, if he had whispered something, hadn't made the least bit of sense. "Did you say something?" she blurted, Jacob shaking his head and saying quickly, "Nope." as he looked at her, look of concern on his face.

Paul's voice bellowing his name, then the giant jerk running over, trying to put him in a headlock had Jacob growling a little as Ara said quietly, "I better get going. I'm not that fond of driving in the dark."

Jacob glared at Paul who stared at him and then shot a look at Arabella Swan before asking, "Whoa.. Did you? On her?"

"Actually, yes. And you coming up like that just scared her off. Something's wrong with her."

"What the hell happened to her face?" Paul asked as Rachel spoke up quietly and added in concern, "I was just about to ask you that."

"Something happened but when I asked about it, she brushed me off, said she'd rather not talk about it." Jacob said as he looked at them both and said "Well, let's go get this over with.. You did tell Sam that after this, I'm gone.. Right?"

Paul lied and said casually, "Yeah, I told him, damn."

Honestly, he hadn't, because parts of him held out hope that Jacob would get his shit together and come back to the reservation where he belonged. Not that Paul wanted to admit it, but he actually missed the jerk. And it worried Rachel when Jacob took off like that, Rachel being his imprint, it affected him to some degree.

Ara took the keys that the woman behind the rental car kiosk handed her, and made her way out to the parking lot, trying to get her head around the whole shock of seeing Jacob unexpectedly like that, in the airport, of all places. What had happened since the last time she'd come to see her father?

She got into the car, pulling it out into traffic, and began the almost hour long drive to Forks. The time was spent mostly low rating herself aloud to fill the silence of the small convertible she'd rented. Then the rest of the time that she wasn't doing this, of course, she was trying to imagine what her life might have been like, had she chosen to come to Forks when her sister Bella moved here a few years ago.

Would it really have been any different or any better?

She sighed as she said quietly, "I'll never know.. Who knows.. I might have actually been pregnant.. While I'm daydreaming, I suppose I could add Jacob into the picture.. We might have been happy right now, at our own place, getting ready for our first Christmas together or something.. But now, because I made one bad choice, which lead to a series of worse ones, I'll never know, because I'm never going down that road again. Ever." to herself.

Her stomach churned, the closer she got to her father's house. How was he going to take seeing for himself what she'd done and let herself get into, when out in the world on her own?

And again, she got angry with herself. She was supposed to be the better one of herself and her sister. She was supposed to have the life Bella had right now, she was supposed to be happy. She'd bought this all on herself though, and of course, now she was going to deal with the outcome.

And probably alone, of course.

She'd rather do it that way, this time, than admit she'd been stupid, she'd been too trusting, she'd been weak and she'd wound up getting burned as a result.

She realized that she was lucky to have gotten out of the situation she was in. Women the world over usually didn't get the chance to get out. And the ones who did wound up going back. But she was bound and determined she was not going to become a statistic.

She was too smart for that.

She pulled into the curb in front of her father's small 2 story house and sat there a few minutes, composing herself quietly, reapplying makeup. Then she took a few deep breaths and was about to go inside when the front door opened and her father walked out onto the entryway.

She didn't think, she just ran to him.

And even though she tried to stop them, she tried as hard as she could, the tears still came anyway, and she wasn't even remotely coherent through the crying she was doing. He lead her inside, and pouring himself a cup of coffee, and her a glass of water, he sat her down at their kitchen table, tried to get her calm again.

"Okay, now start from the beginning.. What's going on?" Charlie asked his daughter in concern, as the light caught on the bruise and the few scratches and scrapes on her face that the makeup didn't hide. He felt the anger surging, but he kept calm instead, focusing on listening to everything she was telling him.

Ara started to pour it all out, everything that'd happened while she was in Miami, and when she finished telling her father, she said quietly, "I came here because I always felt safer here than I did at Mom and Phil's. I mean nothing against them, I just kinda needed my dad." while looking at him.

He nodded and sipped his coffee as he said quietly, "I'm glad you're here. I wish you'd tried to tell someone what was going on sooner."

"I wanted to, but I was too ashamed to admit it was happening to me, and I wanted you guys to think that I was mature enough to handle myself in the adult world. Some adult I make, huh? Get involved with a guy who damn near kills me, and makes me lose a baby in the process."

"People make mistakes, Arabella." Charlie explained as she shook her head and said "Not me, dad. Not anymore. I'm done. That one mistake pretty much showed me everything I didn't want, and frankly, just not too sure I want to try again, ever." as she sipped the water in front of her, feeling a little better.

She'd gotten it all off her chest. Now she could work through everything hopefully and deal with what came next. Her father's next words, however, had her stiffening in her seat, bracing herself. "I think you and I and your sister need to sit down and talk while you're here. She's moving soon, and I just have some things I think we all need to get out on the table and off our chests."

Internally, she felt angry, but she took a few deep breaths and muttered "Yes sir." while managing her best smile. She'd talk to her older sister, like her father wanted, but she really didn't think that either of them wanted to hear what she had to say.

She really didn't want to say it, either. She could have literally went a thousand lifetimes without saying it. She hated fights, she hated making a scene, maybe that's why she always bent over backwards to please everyone, be the best child she could possibly be.

Which apparently, while good, only served to get her obvious problems ignored. Not that it mattered, because she usually handled them on her own anyway, stubborn pride usually kept her from asking for any sort of help. Not to mention she hated any form of pity.

She didn't want people being around her just because they felt sorry for her. She wanted them there because they wanted to be there. When they hadn't been there, she hadn't pushed it or told them how hurt it made her feel. She just put it down to them being busy, or them not wanting to be there in the first place.

But given the way her father had greeted her tonight, and how happy her showing up like she had seemed to make him, she was wondering a little bit at least, if she hadn't been completely wrong when she'd distanced herself and written things off like she had for the majority of her childhood.

"Are you hungry?" Charlie asked his daughter as she shook her head and said "I don't think I could eat right now, even if I really wanted to." quietly. She stood and pushing her chair under the table, she hugged her father and said "I'm gonna call it a night, sir. I think I've got jetlag. I just want to lie down."

She walked into their den and flopped down onto the couch, turning on the television at a low volume. Maybe she'd finally get some sleep tonight. Maybe being here was the right thing to do for once. She had to hope that maybe she'd get it together.

After all, that's why she'd come to her father's house. She'd come here to get her head on again, to get her life back on track, and start over.

She already felt a little better, just having told her father everything. Maybe now everything else would just sort of fall into place.

When Charlie walked past the living room, he peeked in at his daughter, smiled a little as he realized she'd fallen asleep watching an old movie on tv. Walking into the room, he grabbed a throw blanket from his chair, and spread it out on her.

He was worried about her. Something told him that she wasn't handling her loss properly, and she was doing more blaming herself, hating herself for falling in love and making a mistake, an honest mistake that anyone could make, than she was doing anything else.

He turned off the tv and walked out of the living room, going up to his own room to sleep. Maybe now that she was here, she could get past everything she'd just come through. But he was beyond proud of her, because as a police officer, he saw more than his fair share of domestic violence cases and abuse cases, and he knew how hard it was to get away from someone, once they had their hooks in you that deeply, as this Ben guy had apparently done to her.


	4. the truth comes out in many ways

"Your sister's been back a week now. The least you could do, Bella, is go and see her." Edward said simply as he watched his wife putting on the necklace he'd given her.

He'd sort of started to realize that Bella and her younger sibling didn't have a healthy relationship, not by any means. And as much as he really hated to say it, he was sort of seeing why, with the two of them being as stubborn as they were apparently. He sighed and dropped the matter, but only after adding, "She's my sister now too. When I married you, I married your family, in a sense. And if what Alice saw is true, then she sort of needs you, whether she chooses to admit it or not."

She shook her head and said simply, "We don't get along, Edward. Look, if she wanted me around, she'd call me. Has she bothered to come here? She hasn't even tried to call me. In fact, I'm willing to bet that she hits ignore every single time I call. I'm not going to force myself on her, we have more important things to worry about right now. Have you forgotten what's going on with our daughter right now, or.." in a stiff tone. She sighed and then said quietly, "I'm sorry. I don't want to fight with you, but this is sort of my personal business."

"Not anymore, actually." Edward said as he looked at her a few moments, wondering for the briefest of seconds if he'd just missed Bella having slightly selfish tendencies the entire time he'd known her. Then he put it out of his mind. Surely, if it were anything, it were stress. "You do need to at least go over and see if she's really okay." he tried again before turning, walking out of the room to cool off. They'd been fighting a lot lately, especially since that damn dog Jacob had come back to town.

Bella stood and walked out, looking for her husband. She found him in the kitchen and snuggling against his back she said quietly, "This is exactly why I love you. But what would I say if I went there, Edward? She's a lot like me in some ways. She's just not comfortable with showing how upset or hurt she is. She'd rather suffer it in silence.. And me going over there, when she lost her own child.. It'd be rubbing salt in the wound I'd think."

"At least you'd have tried. I mean Jacob's even seen her by now." Edward blurted as he looked at Bella with a raised brow, then took a few deep breaths to calm down a little. He hated arguments, and he didn't feel like having one with her today, not on top of everything else that was going on.

Bella however, was silently furious to hear that Jacob had apparently made time to somehow find out Arabella was in town and see her, when he hadn't bothered calling or even stopping by to see how she was adjusting to life as a new mother and married woman.

Did she just not matter to him anymore? And since when did Ara matter so damn much? Bella found herself incensed at this sudden change, this shift in her personal relationship with the other man in her life, the other one love she'd ever had.

Edward saw something in his wife's eyes, but he thought it better than to comment. They'd been through a lot, she was probably just missing life as a human. Jacob was, after all, her link to the human world she'd chosen to leave behind.

Bella sighed and then said quietly, "You're right. I should go over and at least see what she's managed to get herself into this time, for myself. I swear, she was always the one who was addicted to danger and romance. And I'm willing to bet that's exactly what got her into the jam she's in right now."

He managed a smile, while fuming in jealousy himself. Just because Ara saw Jacob before she did, Bella got angry? That hurt on some level, but Edward knew how strong their love was, so the jealousy lasted an entire split second before vanishing deep down below the surface. He gave his wife a kiss and then grabbing his jacket, he said casually, "I think I'll come along."

She smiled gratefully. Her sister, while not a mean spirited person by nature, could on occasion have a far sharper tongue than anyone she'd ever met, and she just didn't really think she was up for enduring it alone, should the two come to blows as they often did in times past.

A few moments later, the family of 3 sat at the curb in front of her father's house, and Bella stared at it, biting her lower lip. How was she going to explain Renesmee? She was only almost a year old, she already looked and acted as if she were four or something. And she hadn't quite explained to her father what she was now, either.

"Are you really sure this is a good idea, Edward?" Bella asked quietly as he gave her hand a gentle squeeze and said "What harm could it do, really? Maybe you'll finally patch things up with her?"

"That's highly doubtful. I mean I've tried a thousand times before, but I just... She keeps her distance, from me, from our parents, from anyone, really. I've never understood why." Bella murmured as she finally got out, unfastened Renesmee from her car seat in the back, and waited on Edward to get out so they could all walk in together.

The steady bassline from the living room indicated that apparently Ara was awake, and the little girl crept away from her parents, peeked into the living room, watched her aunt as she moved around gracefully, dancing to some rap song on the radio. "What she doing, mommy?" Nessie asked Bella who said quietly, "She's probably dancing. She was always better at that than me. She's the one who stuck with ballet when we were kids. She's probably the reason you're as graceful as you are."

Renesmee studied the curvy female and nodded shyly. Bella cleared her throat and the music stopped as Ara spun around. Bella saw the fading bruises and scrapes on her sister's arms and her face, and she gasped involuntarily before stepping into the room and shutting the door behind her, shutting Edward and Nessie in the hallway.

Nessie tugged her father's hand and asked, "They don't like each other... Do they?"

"Not according to mommy." Edward said as he focused, and found that he could actually access Ara's thoughts quite easily, and apparently, she was hurting more than anyone actually realized. He also quickly figured out the reason Ara never bothered to reach out to her family before now.

Ara gave her sister a curt nod and then said calmly, "Don't get your danties in a twist. I handled it. Just like I handle everything else that goes completely awry in my life." as she flopped down onto a nearby couch, taking a few deep breaths, exhausted from the workout she'd just put herself through.

"It sure as hell doesn't look like you handled it, Ara." Bella said calmly, keeping an even tone. If only she could sort of sense what was on her sister's mind right now, like Edward could do with people. She could tell Ara was hurting, but she couldn't tell just how bad or how deep it all ran.

The anger at what Edward dropped on her about Jacob stopping by or something, to see Ara pushed to the forefront and she said casually, "I heard you've seen Jacob since you've been back.. Yet he can't come to see me, nor can you.. You do have a niece who really wants to meet you." trying to keep the real reason she was hurt by it hidden from Ara.

Ara smirked and said casually, "Yeah, I knew you'd hear we ran into one another. It was nothing, Bella, there's no reason to worry your pretty little head. I'm not back here to take all your spotlight, okay? I'm just back here to grieve and get on with my own life. Have I ever taken your spotlight before?"

Bella started to say something in anger, but instead she said simply, "No.. But I didn't say that."

"As usual, sister, you didn't have to. It's written all over that pretty little face of yours. Look, I'm over it, okay? Everything we put each other through in the past, everything I went through, alone, while I let you have all the attention you've always seemed to crave. One of us actually has to be strong, right? Might as well be me, I suppose." Ara said quietly, her face taking on a pained look as she added seconds later, "I'm sorry, I just.. I've held things in too long. My point is, Bella, you're not gonna lose anything you want or have. I'm just here to cope. I'd rather be all alone here, surrounded by my family, than I would be all alone there, shut in with a fucking monster."

Bella processed this quietly as she asked, "The guy that did this.. You left him, right? It's over, right?"

"Mhmm.. I'm here, aren't I?" Ara said calmly as she added under her breath, "for all the good it'll do." while stretching, going into one of her yoga positions.

"When did you start doing yoga?" Bella asked as Ara shrugged and said "In high school. It's calming. Keeps me in shape too. Not all of us have perfect figures from the second we're born." with a hint of jealousy in her tone as she avoided looking at her older sister for a few moments.

"I do not have a perfect figure." Bella said as Ara shrugged and dropping to the floor near Bella asked calmly, "So.. Other than to make sure I'm not here to steal your other man, Bells, why are you here, exactly?"

Bella sighed and grumbled and then said aloud, "I wanted to make sure you actually were okay."

"Not that you can do anything to help me, but yeah.. I think I'm going to be fine. I'm the tough one, remember? You don't have to be." Ara pointed out as Bella grumbled again and said "Would you stop that? You're always trying to shove me away, or Charlie and Renee."

Ara shrugged, her arms going around her knees as she took a few calming breaths and said aloud, "Just easier than dealing with what always happens when both of us need them at the same time, I suppose. I mean I know I'll never win with you around, and given that we are sisters.. There weren't actually many times when you weren't around. Or calling. Or something. But hey, like I said.. I'm over it." while staring at the turned off television set, avoiding eye contact.

She'd promised herself when she'd come home, that she was going to say what she'd been holding back for so long and then just let it go, not give a damn anymore. What good would caring what effect her thoughts and words finally spoken after so long possibly do, anyway? She'd learned how to deal with all this long ago, her life wouldn't magically change overnight. The only thing that would, if she really thought about it, was that now, her family would know how she felt.

And that wasn't a good thing, but she wasn't keeping it bottled up inside, either, so it wasn't a bad thing.

"So.. What did Jake have to say when you saw him?" Bella asked, fishing for any kind of a sign that Jacob might still even care about her, even if it were only a slim little bit. Ara rolled her eyes while looking at her hands, then said calmly, "Nothing really."

"So he came here to see you, but he sat here and said nothing." Bella asked, brow raised. That almost sounded like.. She quickly shoved that thought and the jealousy that preceded it out of her mind. She was happy with Edward, with the life they were making, if they could only just get past this whole Volturi mess.

"Basically, yeah. He's still got that long hair. I have to say it.. If I weren't completely and totally done with the male species as a whole, I'd try and get to know him. But, like I said, you staked your claim long ago, and anyway, I'm done." Ara admitted as she bit her lower lip, thought about his having stopped by a few days before.

Bella took a few deep breaths and then said quietly, "At least we're talking now, not ripping one another to bits, huh?"

"Mhmm. It's not so bad. Doesn't mean I'm gonna become like, your best friend or whatever, and you still irritate me with things you choose to do, but hey.. At least I know we can talk without wanting to choke one another. It's actually semi comforting. I didn't think it was possible, to be perfectly honest." Ara muttered as Bella nodded and said quietly, "Me either.. I know you've probably heard it a thousand times, but I'm sorry.. About.. You know."

"Me losing my little boy?" Ara finished, secretly enjoying the way her older sister squirmed in discomfort as she said calmly, " I'll deal with it, somehow. At least you're happy, though, right? Speaking of.. Where the hell is my niece? I want to see her." ending the whole awkward conversation with Bella, as she stood, walked to the door and opened it, seeing what looked like a 4 year old standing in the hallway.

Quickly, she shut the door and then turned to her sister, raised brow. "I thought you just had Renesmee? I mean Dad called me not so long ago, told me you'd just had her.. How in the literal fuck is she 4?" Ara asked, her arms crossed a little as she looked at her older sister, demanding an explanation.

"Since you shared your feelings with me.. Might as well tell you the truth." Bella said as she paced the living room, sat down on the couch and said quietly, "I'm not exactly me anymore.. And Nessie.. She's half human, half of what her father is... Meaning, of course, she'll grow faster than other kids."

Ara looked at her sister and said "What the hell do you mean you're not exactly you anymore and that Nessie's only half human, Bells?" while biting her lower lip, wondering what the hell her brother in law had actually done to her older sister.

She did look a lot different if Ara actually stopped to think about it. "What the fuck did that son of a... What'd he do to you?" she hissed while trying to keep her voice down. She got the feeling that whatever her sister was about to tell her, she wasn't going to like it, not in the slightest.

"Remember when you jokingly called him a zombie?" Bella asked, biting her lower lip, a little more nervous than normal, she'd not been looking forward to telling her family what she'd given up to be with Edward.

Especially not after hearing them brag about how well precious little Ara was doing, off on her own, after graduating early, going to the University of Miami, where she hoped to become a doctor, and who knew, she might even cure cancer one day.

For as much as Ara thought Bella got the spotlight, Bella hated hearing how perfect her baby sister was as they'd grown up.

"He's a vampire. And now, I am too." Bella said as Ara looked at her a moment, then proceeded to burst into side splitting laughter, only stopping when she realized that her sister still wore her stoic 'serious' face.

"You're fucking joking, right?" Ara said as she paced, her hand in her hair, thinking about how all of this shit would somehow inevitably fuck up her niece's life completely. "And Ness.. She's.. Do you realize what you've done to her, Bells, with your really, really shitty choice?"

"At least the result of my shitty choice is a good one, and my face isn't covered in bruises, I'm not broken." Bella argued back, their voices raising. Outside the room, Edward stiffened and Nessie looked up, slightly afraid. "She doesn't like me, does she?"

"No, baby, she's just not sure how to take finding out what we are now. She doesn't understand, that's all." Edward explained gently, as he said quietly, "She'll love you. She's just got to get used to this."

Nessie nodded and then asked quietly, "Is she mad at mommy?"

Edward kept silent on that one, of course, he knew already that Ara was beyond angry. Ara, right now, was furious. She was worried about the affect Nessie's being what she was would have on Nessie's life, and how Bella's being one of the 'undead' would affect her sister's own life in the long run. And he knew that she also, to some extent, blamed him for all of it. Which was true, but it wasn't. He hadn't wanted to turn Bella, his intention hadn't ever been that. But he hadn't wanted to lose her, either.

Inside the room, Ara glared at her sister and snapped back, "At least I'm not being brainwashed by my husband to believe I'm some blood sucking creature. I mean that's what this has to be, right? I told you, Bella, a thousand times. That guy is trouble. And now, he's gone and done something to Nessie, and.. Ughh, I just can't do this with you right now, I can't." Ara snapped as she grabbed her jacket, cigarettes and a lighter, shoved past her sister, walked out into the cold outdoors, pacing as she shakily lit a cigarette, processing what her delusional sister claimed to be true.

Edward walked out behind her, making Bella stay in with Renesmee. Maybe if he explained all this to her, she'd see that they were fine, all except for this thing with the Volturi thinking that he and Bella had created an Immortal Child.

Maybe he could sort of smooth things out.

He had to at least try, because reading her mind just now, it'd been a huge insight to her as a person, and he realized that for the most part, the things Bella thought about Ara were almost completely and totally wrong. Someone had to fix this whole bizarre family dynamic they had and he was an outsider, a non partial 3rd party, so he might as well try.

"Haven't you done enough?" Ara asked as she looked at Edward who said quietly, "Deep down, you know she's not lying.. To some extent, you knew what I was when Bella and I came to Florida for those few days." while holding her gaze.

"That shit isn't real. It doesn't , this is just you and me out here, Cullen, so be honest for one time in your life. You picked her because she's soft headed and she's gullible. She's the perfect moldable target for brainwashing cults like your little family... Right?" Ara asked as Edward chuckled and shook his head then said "I've heard a lot of names over my time.. That's the first time I've been accused of being a cult leader, bent on brainwashing the masses."

Ara glared at him and exhaled a plume of smoke, then he asked her a question that made her choke on the smoke, when he asked her, "When you talked to the dog.. Did you hear what he was thinking? And did you think it was odd?"

Ara looked at him a moment and then said with a laugh, "Jacob is not a dog. And actually, no.. I was probably just imagining things. Why?"

"Because, Arabella.. I can read your mind right now, and you were wondering about that a little while ago, before we walked into the house." Edward said as she stiffened, stood as if she were about to bolt back indoors, away from him.

"If it helps... The only reason I made your sister into what I am, is because if I had not, she'd have died giving birth to Renesmee." Edward said calmly as he looked up at her, from where he sat on the edge of Charlie's sidewalk.

The thought sank in, sobering Ara who sank back down, sitting. After a few moments, she asked quietly, "Supposing I believe you.. Supposing I don't think you're both perfect candidates for an asylum right now.. Why in the hell would you choose to become.. This.." she asked, gesturing at him, looking at him in curiousity.

"I actually didn't. I was dying and Dr. Cullen turned me because my mother begged him to do something. Then I became one of them, I lived with the Cullen family. Honestly, I don't know why anyone would choose this." Edward said quietly as he studied her a moment. She looked at him and shaking her head said calmly, " It explains a lot of weird shit I noticed about you when you came to Mom's.. Like how you pretended to eat. I mean yeah, my mother's cooking is horrible.. But I don't think I honestly saw you take one bite the entire time you were there. Do you go around feeding off of people?"

From behind them, Bella spoke up quietly, "Actually, we feed mostly on animals." as Ara nodded, biting her thumbnail, trying to get her head around the lunacy of this all. That was when her niece walked over, and pressed one of her small hands to Ara's cheek.

Ara blinked as she saw a little boy, who could have been her son, the one she lost, laughing and running on a beach with her and a Great Dane.. It was a dream she'd taken to having for over a week or two now, since she'd learned that she lost her baby after waking up in the hospital. She gasped a little and looked at Nessie who said quietly, "He's happy."

"How the hell..." she muttered as she looked up at Edward and Bella who said quietly, "We all have a gift when we're born.. Nessie's is tactile thought projection, which means she can make you see things she wants you to see, or show you things that you want to see." while a stunned Ara paced a few moments, her hand in her thick and wildly curly hair.

"I didn't know your hair was curly." Edward mused, to sort of ease the tension. Ara nodded and with a light laugh, she looked at Renesmee and said "She gets that from Charlie.. Like I did." in reference to their curly hair. Renesmee walked towards her tentatively and Ara bent, picking her up.

Even if she disliked her sister's choices, and the things she'd done to herself apparently, since moving to Forks, she couldn't quite bring it on herself to hate her niece, who seemed to be so sweet and caring. She sat down on the sidewalk and then said quietly, "I saw you watching me earlier.." as Renesmee nodded and Ara said casually, "Your mother's a klutz. But every little girl should at least know a little about dancing.."

The little girl smiled and nodded as she asked, "Are you gonna stay mad at my mommy?"

Ara shrugged as she said quietly, "We just don't get along, pixie dust. And we probably won't ever get along. It's nobody's fault, really.." while raking her hands slowly through the little girls hair, Edward and Bella standing off to the side, watching them.

"Can you read her mind?" Bella asked, feeling her jealousy surge a moment when Edward nodded and said quietly, "And she doesn't actually hate you. She just hates the fact that according to her, she seems to think you're the favorite of you two."

Bella nodded and said quietly, "Kinda like I do. I have no idea how that all started." while mulling that over quietly, internally. She shoved the jealousy she felt down and then said "It's been an exhausting morning. Maybe we should go.."

"Are you sure?" Edward asked as Bella nodded and said quietly, "All the problems between us wil not be fixed in a day, if they're ever fixed at all. But at least now we both know how the other one feels, and we can carry on civil conversations at least. I still don't see why Jacob came to see her and hasn't bothered coming to see either of us."

"You mean why he hasn't bothered coming to see you." Edward pointed out, Bella biting her lower lip as she tried to cover quickly, but realized that he knew her well enough by now, that he didn't have to read her mind to know that the fact that Jacob was apparently done with her hurt and angered her.

They said their goodbyes and Bella said quietly to her sister, "Look.. We don't get along, and we know that.. But trust me when I say that when you left that guy, you did the best thing you could have ever done for yourself." as Ara nodded and said with a slight smirk, "Outside of putting him in the infirmary at the local police station, when they came to haul him in, yeah.. I guess I did. This changes nothing with us. Let's just agree to disagree."

Bella nodded and got into her car, the car pulling away as Ara walked back inside, her mind racing a million miles a minute as she flopped down onto the couch, mentally and phsyically exhausted now.

"We might not ever get along, but at least now she knows why." Ara assured herself as she turned on the television, lie there in the semi darkness of the room, just watching it, letting her mind wander. What had Edward meant when he called Jacob a dog?

Why'd that one sentence, uttered by a brother in law that she really didn't know well, or care to know well, bother her so much? Why'd it seem like something else was being hidden from her?

She sighed as she muttered "None of this is any of your concern, Ara. You're the outsider here, remember? It's all about Bella, it's always been that way, it'll always be that way. Just get your life together and deal with your grief. Then you can figure out what you're going to do next." to herself and shut the tv off, just lying there.

At least she'd accomplished one goal since coming back. She'd finally gotten off her chest exactly how she felt about Bella, about the way their family operated.

Notes:

Wow! Only 3 chapters in and already I have 2 reviews, 3 favorites and 7 follows. You guys are totally amazing, I didn't think to be honest, that the story would go over that well, considering I openly admit to hating the lead female canon character.

Sorry for those who don't enjoy Bella bashing. I should clarify, these two have an unusual relationship as sisters. They're very internal, so everything they say to one another during the story, has been lurking in their subconciouses a long time. In this chapter, if Ara came off as a bitch, it was only because she was trying to finally tell her sister how it felt growing up in her shadow. So if she seems bitchy, sorry for that. I wanted to sort of get across how it might feel, growing up in a family where you feel like nothing you do matters.

But yes, there will be overall cattiness and bashing, probably a mutual thing. But if you actually like Bella as a character, I warn you all now, she's going to be bashed a good bit here and there, because personally, I didn't like her. I just felt like she was kinda a little psycho or something.

Hope you guys like the story so far, and I pray to God I'm at least doing a halfway decent job at writing the different characters I write into the story as it goes. Love you all!


	5. there is no such thing as coincidence 2

"So.. What are your plans for today?" Charlie asked his youngest daughter as she walked into the room, stretching and fumbling blindly for coffee, pouring herself a cup then sitting down. She yawned then shrugging said "Actually, I'm going to ride into Port Angeles and try to find a job or something. Maybe go by the college there and pre register myself for classes for the term that's about to start." Ara said as she sipped the coffee, blowing on it to cool it off as she asked quietly, "What about you?"

"The station called a little while ago, there was another body found in the back alley behind some bar in the next town."

"La Push?" Ara asked as her ears perked a moment. She let out a breath when her father said "No, that small town before you come into Forks." as she nodded and asked, "A murder happened here?" with a raised brow, letting that thought sink in. Sure, she knew murders happened everywhere, they'd happened a lot in Miami, but she never actually thought about any major crimes happening here.

The thought that they did, sort of now had her worried about her father's safety while on the job. She looked at him a moment and then said "Be careful out there."

He nodded and said quietly, "You too. Take the mase. Don't hesitate to use it, if you have to. I mean if you even think someone's going to harm you." as he looked at her. She laughed a little and admitted, "I kinda don't need mase, sir."

"And why not?" her father asked, looking at her as she shrugged and said "Because I've taken self defense, boxing, light mixed martial arts and I'm pretty sure that I could successfully discourage anyone who might wanna hurt me. I sort of had to do that before already, in the supposed safety of my own home." while grimacing at the memory that her statement bought forth.

She might have started out meek and mild, scared to harm a fly, but by the end of the almost 2 years she'd spent with Ben, she'd learned exactly just how much fight she had when her back was against a wall, and she'd never once hesitated to use it if she had to.

Charlie studied his daughter a moment, quietly, trying to figure her out. She'd done a lot of changing, a lot of growing up and apparently, from the sound of it, a lot of toughening up while she was off on her own. He felt bad for not having picked up on anything being wrong before now and he found himself wishing suddenly that life came with a rewind button.

"Dad, it's fine, really." Ara muttered quietly, she knew her father well enough to know he was most likely sitting there blaming himself for all this. She really didn't blame him. To some degree, she was starting to see that she'd sort of made the situation she found herself in presently.

She didn't make her older sister the way she was, but she did facilitate it by sitting back and just letting her parents fuss over Bella, worry about Bella, constantly try and 'fix' Bella.

They sat in silence at the table, and as she finished off her coffee, she spoke up and asked, "So.. These murders.."

"Are brutal and they've been going on way too long." Charlie finished off as he took a sip of his own coffee and then said quietly, "People started out thinking they were wild animal attacks. We're starting to think otherwise, even though it still doesn't explain how.. Nevermind." he trailed off. He knew he couldn't discuss work with her, and he knew that she probably didn't need to hear it, either. She'd sort of always had a weak stomach to some degree, even though she loved horror movies, she'd more often than not turn her head if a really bloody and gory scene came up.

"Yeah. You don't have to finish, I think I know what you were gonna say, Dad." Ara said quietly as she stopped to hug him and said "You just be careful, okay?" while looking at him. He nodded and smiling said "Good luck today.. And Ara? I'm proud of you. There aren't many girls who actually have the strength to get away from situations like the one you got out of. You did it. Just promise me you're gonna stay out?"

She nodded and said "That I can do, actually. I'm totally done with the concept of love and happily ever after. Maybe I just wasn't meant to have that kinda life. But it'll be fine. Just need a new plan, that's all." while hugging him.

She slid on a jacket, pocketed her keys and after grabbing her purse, reapplying her makeup and analyzing her outfit for the day, a light blue cashmere v neck sweater, some jeggings and a pair of boots, she nodded in satisfaction and set off for Port Angeles.

She parked in the campus parking lot, sat there staring at the school for a few moments, willing herself to get out. She had to start getting back on her feet. She couldn't let all this keep her down forever, she wasn't that kind of girl. And moping around her father's house wasn't doing anything but making things worse, harder to let go of.

"I got this. I am the stronger one, after all." she murmured to herself as she locked up the car, walked into the building and then into the admissions office. An hour later, she sat in the driver seat of her car again, reading over her finalized schedule for courses when the term started again. And she'd found out that there was an internship open to select few at the hospital here in Port Angeles, that she might be able to enter into, if they got her transcripts and records from the University of Miami, found them satisfactory enough.

Biting her lower lip, she sat a few moments, debating on where to go next, and ultimately, she decided that the best place to find a job would be the mall, since it was maybe 10 minutes from campus. So she went there and put in her application at 2 stores.

Walking out of the lingerie store she'd just applied to work in, Victoria's Secret, she turned a corner, happened to bump straight into Jacob Black and two other equally massively sized guys around Jacob's age.

She gave a nod, thinking that'd be the end of it, after all, he'd always seemed to prefer Bella more, but he surprised her when he caught up to her as she passed one of the food stands in the middle of the mall and tapped her shoulder.

"You dropped this." he said as he held out her cell phone. She nodded and then said simply, "Thanks.. At least you found it, right? I probably wouldn't have known until I got home." while gazing into his eyes a few moments, and rather intently, at that.

Jacob stood there a few moments, his brain not working properly, he couldn't think of anything to really talk about. After all, he'd had a huge crush on her when they were kids, so naturally, he'd shied away from her, and as a result, now he hardly knew her, not like he knew her older sister.

The thought had him kicking himself again as he thought to himself, _'Speak, idiot. This always happened around her, your brain went to absolute goo. There has to be something you can say to keep her standing her longer, talking to you longer. This is worse than the other day, when you went by Charlies to see her, and then sat in her living room, staring at her like an ass the entire time.' _

Ara blinked as she looked at him with a raised brow. If she didn't know any better.. No, she couldn't be hearing him thinking.. She didn't have ESP or whatever the hell they called it. There was nothing special or remarkable about her.

She remembered what her brother in law, the creepy fuck told her the other day, about Jacob. The heat between them, again, was almost equal to what it'd feel like if they were in a sauna, or standing in a boiler room, right next to a roaring furnace.

She gave a slight shrug and then shook her head, muttered quietly, "Nevermind."

_No that wasn't weird _she thought to herself, _Not the slightest bit weird at all. You keep thinking you hear him saying things when he's not talking. If you're going to stand here checking him out like you are, Ara, the least you can do is at least try to talk to the guy. It's not like if you talk to him you have to fall head over heels in love with him. Friends are good for you, especially right now._

Jacob licked his lips as he realized that apparently, whatever was happening with them, well, she was experiencing it too. He stared at her intently a moment and then finally, he managed to say "Do you wanna grab something to eat with me and the guys? I mean I haven't seen you since you were 10 and I've actually kinda missed you."

She blinked a little, but then nodded as she shoved the overall bizarreness of this situation out of her head. Looking at him she smiled as best as she could and then said "Yeah, I guess it can't hurt. I mean I can't stay long.." while offering an apologetic smile at the last part before continuing, "But like you said.. I haven't seen you since you were 10."

For now, he said nothing about the realization he'd had, that apparently, they were both hearing one another when they'd think something. Walking through the crowd, he moved her closer to him so they didn't get seperated, and his hand found the small of her back.

She flinched away a little, then thought to herself, _'Another really, really good reason you'd never make it in another relationship. Ben made absolutely sure he broke you before he finished you. Now you're so fucking neurotic, you can't even be accidentally touched without flinching like some pathetic little..' _while coughing aloud to mask the basketcase move she'd just pulled by flinching away from him when he'd accidentally brushed his hand against her back.

At least she was 90 percent sure it'd been an accident...

Jacob noticed the flinch, and he knew it'd distressed her when she'd done it. He mentally kicked himself for making the sudden yet subtle move, and thought to himself, _'What the hell did happen to you? Who the fuck is Ben, and when can I murder the guy?'_

When she coughed, he smirked to himself a little, wondering if he'd heard her just now, if his little silent experiment worked or not. She stared at him a few moments and then shook her head, muttering under her breath.

Then she thought to herself, _' You, Jacob, aren't going to have to murder him. Pretty sure he's done with me now anyway, he never liked playing with his toys anymore after he broke them. And what happened to me, well, that's my own personal shit. How the hell are you even in my head right now?'_

This time, Jacob coughed and fidgeted nervously, she smirked a little and then said quietly, "It's probably just better all around that we do not talk about Ben.. Or what happened to me in Miami, or what the hell's going on right now. It's been one hell of a few days for me, really." while looking up at him, twisting a curly strand of light brown hair around her fingertip as she licked her lips.

Why the hell was it, when she was around him, she felt her senses fail her, she felt like the breath got plain knocked out of her? And her knees, they were so weak she couldn't stand. She was determined to fight whatever was happening right now, because there was no way in hell she was letting herself get that close to someone again, no way in hell she was letting herself be hurt, again.

_'I don't know how we're doing this. But I do know that if I see this Ben guy again, he's dead. There's not a damn thing you're going to do to stop me, either. And as far as broken, Ara? I don't see you want to talk, Ara, I'm right here. And I'm not going anywhere.' _Jacob thought to himself as he looked at her. She bit her lower lip and mulled things over a moment as she looked up at him. Instead of responding, she kept quiet, they continued walking through the crowded mall, eventually meeting back up with his friends, none of whom she readily recognized, and one girl, Leah, she could plainly see, either hated her for one reason or another, or lumped her in with Bella, whom she actually knew.

Leah studied Jacob's imprint intently, sizing her up. When she'd heard that the girl was Bella's younger sister, she'd instantly groaned and written her off as 'just like Bella, all over again'.

Looking at her, meeting her in person, she wasn't entirely sure if she were right on that prediction, but she could tell that if Jacob wanted this to work, he had his work cut out for him. Which made her upset, because she really didn't want anyone coming in between the sort of friendship she'd formed with Jacob over the course of their time as shifters.

Bluntly, when Ara realized that Leah was giving her quiet a hairy look, she said with a slight smirk, "It's called a bruise. But trust me, the other guy looks much worse." for some reason, feeling slightly apprehensive towards the much taller girl, feeling maybe a little jealous of her or something, she wasn't entirely sure, but it went without saying, she could tell that Leah wasn't going to just befriend her overnight, if she wanted the girls friendship, which oddly enough, she sort of did, it was going to take a lot of effort from her.

Leah looked at her a moment and then nodded, letting the matter drop for now. Ara sat down in the booth with the rest of them, finding herself smooshed almost unbearably close to Jacob, who just shrugged and smiled apologetically.

As they ate, she looked around the table at the group of them, trying to figure out what they knew but weren't telling her. She could just sort of sense it on some level. Oh, they attempted to make her feel welcome enough, but they just seemed so stiff and formal or something, she almost felt as if she were intruding.

When she finished eating, she nudged Jacob and then said aloud, "It was great seeing you again, Jacob. I'm gonna go now, I actually should have gone a while ago." before giving him a wary hug, stiff more than it was anything, staring up at him a moment and then practically bolting for the nearest exit. Jacob watched her go and then sat down, glaring at Leah as he said "Seriously? You had to make her feel uncomfortable."

"I did nothing, actually. She was probably actually in a hurry, Jake." Leah said as she looked at him and then said calmly, "Okay, so she's not just like her sister.. But it still doesn't mean that she's any different or better. Are you totally sure you imprinted on her?"

"Yes, Leah, for the thousandth time, I am. And I'm glad I did, because I actually liked her, no I actually loved her, all along." Jacob said through gritted teeth as he looked at them and then added firmly, "She's been through a lot. She's just trying to get her life together again."

Quil asked aloud, "Did you at least find out if she was hearing you think things too, or it was just you hearing her thoughts?" as he looked at Jacob. Eyes shifted to him as he nodded then said quietly, "She does hear me. And no, I have no idea why. Logically, she shouldn't be able to, and I shouldn't be able to hear her thoughts, either. Can we talk about something else? Anything else?"

"If she's so skittish that the slightest thing makes her bolt, Black.. Just how in the hell do you intend on getting her to trust you and getting closer to her?" Paul asked in amusement as Jacob shot him one of the dirtiest looks he could muster and said through gritted teeth, "I'll manage."

"And you still say you're leaving for Canada when this thing with the Volturi is over.. You're absolutely sure you're not going to stay." Embry asked, brow quirked, wondering how exactly that'd work, if he'd imprinted on Ara.

Was he really planning on taking her with him? Given how skittish she was right now? How'd he even logically begin to think that would work?

Jacob clenched his fists and took a few deep breaths then said "I'll figure something out. I just know I'm done with everything related to Bella." as Leah said with a slight laugh, "Yet you go and imprint on her little sister."

"Because, Leah, that's how it was supposed to have been all along, obviously. I'm not going to fight it, but I'm not going to force her to be with me, either." Jacob said as he bit his lip and realized that if he had to let her go and forget her, or try to, it'd kill him. And even if he said otherwise, he just wasn't sure he'd be able to do that.

Ara sat in her car, thinking about the few times she'd seen Jacob since coming to Forks, thinking about this odd and strong pull towards him. She sighed as she lightly beat her head against the headrest behind her, then said calmly, "I'm done.. Besides, I know now that he and Bella had a thing.. Really not looking to be second choice. I'd rather die alone than fall for someone who only wants me because I'm the younger sister of the girl he really loves."

She pulled out of the mall parking lot and drove home, wondering why that bothered her so much, if she were done with everything, if she weren't planning on falling in love and letting someone that close to her ever again.

It only resulted in her making herself angry at herself all over again, and she opted instead to go online, look up things about her niece's "Hybrid' status. Which is what she was doing when her bedroom door opened and she heard the sound of little feet walking carefully into Bella's old room.

Small hands went over her eyes and she giggled a little as she asked, "Where's your mommy?"

"She had to go somewhere. But Grandpa said you were home. It okay I'm in here?"

Ara nodded and said quietly, "Yeah, it's fine.. So, do you wanna listen to music?" with Nessie nodding, Ara standing, going to her music player on her laptop and turning it on, standing as she smiled a little then said "I think you'd like swing dancing."

Charlie stood in the doorway laughing as he watched Ara teaching, or attempting to teach Renesmee how to swing dance before speaking up, "I used to dance around the living room like that with you and your sister."

"Yeah, you used to sing this song all the time, and it made me laugh." Ara said with a slight smile as she flopped onto the bed, Nessie landing beside her as she held her hand out, put it on Ara's cheek again.

This time, Ara saw something entirely different than the last time, and she muttered, "Yeah, if only that were reality." as Nessie said insistantly, "But it could be.."

"Nah, trust me, Nessie.. I'm pretty much just done." Ara said as she sighed and managed a smile as she asked, "So... Do you wanna go watch tv with me or something?"

At least with her niece here, she wasn't shut up, alone in this room, thinking about things, blaming herself for pretty much everything. It helped a lot, being around her family, even if she still felt to some degree like she was on the outside looking in.

* * *

Notes:

Wow! Only 4 chapters in and already I have 2 reviews, 5 favorites and 8 follows. You guys are totally amazing, I didn't think to be honest, that the story would go over that well, considering I openly admit to hating the lead female canon character.

Sorry for those who don't enjoy Bella bashing. I should clarify, these two have an unusual relationship as sisters. They're very internal, so everything they say to one another during the story, has been lurking in their subconciouses a long time.

But yes, there will be overall cattiness and bashing, probably a mutual thing. But if you actually like Bella as a character, I warn you all now, she's going to be bashed a good bit here and there, because personally, I didn't like her. I just felt like she was kinda a little psycho or something.

Hope you guys like the story so far, and I pray to God I'm at least doing a halfway decent job at writing the different characters I write into the story as it goes. Love you all!


	6. the harsh truth of things 1

He paced his room as he raked his hand through his long black hair, puzzling over what'd happened at the mall earlier with Ara, what'd been happening since he'd imprinted on her a week ago when they'd ran into one another at the airport. Logically, they should not have this bizarre mental wavelength they had, so the fact that they did in fact have some extrasensory way to communicate had him completely baffled for the most part.

He sat down in the chair at his desk, logged onto the internet, and began just casually searching through a few of the legends of his tribe that were actually posted online. He leaned back in the chair, biting his thumbnail as he scanned over one article, then grumbled as he realized there was apparently no documented case of this ever happening between an imprinter and their imprintee. "This could be a good thing, though." Jacob muttered, mused to himself as he leaned back in the chair again, threw a dart at the dartboard he had hanging on a nearby wall.

His cell phone rang and he rolled his eyes as he saw Bella's cell phone number come up. He wasn't in the mood to talk to her, it was really better the less he did see and talk to her, all things considered. It was enough he was having to fight against the Volturi, with his pack members, united, because of her stupid husband Edward.

He hit ignore, the phone rang again and he chuckled and rolled his eyes as he said aloud, "Really, Bella? You're gonna keep calling? Go bother your husband. I'm done. I've been done for almost 2 years now. I just put all I had into you because I wanted your sister deep down, and she wasn't there." to himself. From the doorway, Paul chuckled and then said casually, "And the truth finally comes out.. If you really had balls, Jacob, you'd tell her that in person. It'd really make things interesting I think."

"And as usual, Paul, don't you have something else to do than hang around here, eat all the damn food and irritate me?" Jacob asked, barely hiding the smirk that came when he ducked the wayward punch Paul sent his way.

"Just because you're second alpha in command, Black.. It doesn't mean I'm gonna kiss your ass. Personally, you don't deserve it. I stayed. I was loyal. Where the fuck were you, huh?" Paul asked, barely masking his anger.

The cell phone rang again and he picked it up, not looking at the caller id. Bella's voice grated his nerve as she spoke. He almost hung up, but Paul's words from just before the call taunted him and he said casually, "Hi, Bella."

Bella smiled to herself. Still the same easygoing and good hearted guy he'd always been. Still her dependable, sweet Jacob. She asked calmly, "So.. Carlisle wanted to know how many shifters were going to be helping us face the Volturi?"

"Huh?" Jacob asked, he'd been distracted, of course, because he'd been just googling Ara's name at random, he'd stumbled onto some amateur modeling thing she'd entered apparently.. For lingerie. He grunted as his eyes roamed over the image of his imprint on his computer screen and right clicking as he listened, but only partially listened to Bella as she droned on and on endlessly in his ear, he saved the pictures, made a wallpaper on his computer then said to Bella impatiently, " So I'm gone for 7 months, the first thing you ask when you finally bother to get in touch is if I'm going to save your ass? Really, Bella, what happened to the small formalities like oh, hey, how are you, how have you been and are you alright, Jacob?"

Bella held the phone away and raised a brow. He almost sounded annoyed.. To be talking to her.. At one time, he'd told her that he'd love her until her heart stopped beating. What the hell changed?

She looked at the phone, hurt, as Edward's words, how Jacob had gone to see Ara before he'd ever even let anyone who knew Bella know he was back in town came back to haunt her and she felt that old feeling of jealousy surging again to the forefront, just like she would when he'd ask out of the blue about Ara when they'd been best friends not so long ago.

Was Ara his imprint? As she wondered this, she found herself angrier than she'd been in a long time. And she felt like she was losing the other guy in her life, the only other man she'd ever really loved. To her sister, who didn't deserve him, to be quite blunt about it.

Ara didn't know him like she did, Ara hadn't been through half the things she'd been through with him over the past few years of their lives. While they'd been trying to keep each other safe and sane, make each other happy and gotten closer than they ever had before, Ara was off in Miami, being the picture perfect little adult or something.

"How are you, Jacob?" Bella asked as she heard him laugh a little and say, "Actually, Bella, the time gave me exactly what I needed. And I'm fine, not that you actually care. Because I realized while I was gone that you probably don't, and you never really did. Guess it's a good thing I never actually loved you, huh?" smirking to himself, waiting on her reaction, now that the truth was out.

Bella gaped at the phone and then said "You don't mean that.. Right?" as she paced the living room of her cottage, biting her lower lip. Things were starting to sink in for her now, little things she'd missed or ignored when she and Ara and Jacob were all kids.. Like the way he always treated Ara like she was fragile or made of glass, got plain protective of her if another little boy tried to play with her or something, the way he'd always blush if Ara gave him candy or something.

Jacob chuckled. He could practically feel her fury through the phone's lines and it was making him want to fall over laughing right now. 9 out of 10, she'd finally put the pieces of the puzzle together, she'd thought back to their childhood and she'd realized that he'd always silently preferred Ara over her, though he'd tried his best, as Bella's best friend, not to show that.

From the doorway, Paul was trying to compress his own laughter so hard he was about to fall over where he stood. He mouthed 'Oh man, you're really, really in deep shit now, Black.'

Jacob shrugged and asked Bella casually, "What's wrong? Can't handle the truth finally coming out? I mean I feel bad about it, I really do.. But you were here and Ara wasn't.. It just kinda happened before I could stop it.. And having 7 months to think about it, Bella, I honestly wish it hadn't. I did try to save you from all this crap though."

Bella growled and hung up on him and with the dialtone ringing in his ears, he sank to the bed in his room in laughter as Paul said with a smirk, "I gotta admit, Black.. I didn't think you'd do that. Ever." sitting down beside Jacob.

Bella stared at the phone in her hand, Jacob's words echoing in her mind now, furious with her baby sister, even though for all intents and purposes, Ara was very much unaware that Jacob had ever felt that way about her, or that he still felt that way about her.

She put the phone down and paced her living room as Rosalie peeked in and asked, "Well? What'd Jacob say? Are they going to help out?"

"Yeah. They're helping. Though if it were left up to Jacob, we'd all be dead." Bella said quietly as Rosalie gave her a raised brow then said "Either way, we're going to need all the witnesses and backup we can get. Carlisle wants us all in the den."

Bella sighed to herself as her eyes caught on the dreamcatcher Jacob made for her when they were supposedly friends. When he supposedly cared about her.

And she thought for a moment, how much her telling Ara how Jacob felt would help her baby sister. But she quickly ruled that out. There was no way she was relinquishing her bond with Jacob Black, even if her baby sister really needed someone by her side right now, even if she knew that Ara had always sort of been infatuated or in love with Jacob, right back.

Because Jacob was her other man. Jacob was not anything to Ara, they'd both been too shy then to act on anything they might have felt as kids and teenagers.

"And if she ever wonders why we do not get along, this is exactly why. Ara's so much better.. Ara's a good girl, be like her. I'd rather be with Ara." Bella grumbled angrily as she finally calmed herself, walked into the den as if nothing were wrong.

Meanwhile, Jacob stood, pacing around his room, his hands in his hair. He'd told Bella the truth. And it felt damn good to finally have it all out on the table, to finally officially drive that final nail in the coffin that was their friendship all this time.

Now he just had to figure out what to do next, with Ara. His eyes caught on the wallpaper of his computer, and he bit his lower lip, raking his hands through his hair as he muttered quietly, "Somehow, Ara.. I'm gonna make this the way it always should have been.. Even if you won't let me in, I'll fight you. Whatever it takes. Because you always were my everything. I just let myself be fooled before, because you weren't here."

Paul snickered and said "Talking to the monitor's not gonna do anything to help this whole situation with her, Jacob. If you wanna do something, do it. Unless, of course, you're a pussy."

Jacob glared, flipping him off as he said "Oh.. I'm doing something about it. I just have to figure out what I'm gonna do about it." while staring at the picture of Ara on his computer screen. "She looks sexy as hell in red though.. Right?"

Paul rolled his eyes and made a mock gagging noise as he waved his hand at Jacob dismissively and left the room. "Gonna leave you two alone." he joked as he shut the door firmly behind him.

Jacob sat there, going back through the legends, hoping to find something, anything to indicate why he and Ara were hearing each other's thoughts and sort of communicating telepathically. "Hmm... Maybe I should go over and see her later." he muttered as he turned off the computer and grabbed his motorcycle keys.

He did need a ride, just to sort everything he'd just done out in his mind and sort of revel in it. Because it had felt very damn good to finally tell Bella where to get off for once.

* * *

Notes:

Wow! Only 6 chapters in and already I have 2 reviews, 6 favorites and 9 follows. You guys are totally amazing, I didn't think to be honest, that the story would go over that well, considering I openly admit to hating the lead female canon character.

And in this chapter, Jacob finally tells Bella a few truths about his own feelings towards her. This won't go well for him, nor will it go well for her sister. This could get really, really interesting to say the least. But just how far will Bella go to try and keep him to herself? We'll just have to see.

Hope you guys like the story so far, and I pray to God I'm at least doing a halfway decent job at writing the different characters I write into the story as it goes. Love you all!


	7. the aftermath of the harsh truth

As soon as Ara saw her sister's Mercedes fly into the driveway of her father's house, from the window she stood in, peeking out, Ara rolled her eyes and muttered dryly, "Great.. I finally get the house to myself and she comes over. Wonder what's up her ass today." while watching her sister walking angrily up the walkway and then into their house.

The door to the living room opened rather forcefully a few seconds later, and Ara looked up calmly from the yoga position she'd resumed when she'd lost interest in watching her sister storm angrily up the freshly shoveled walkway and asked with a raised brow and curious look in her eyes, "Yeah?"

"You! For some reason, Jacob hates me now, and it's all your fault!" Bella hissed angrily as Ara righted herself and sat leaned against the couch, her knee crooked, her arm casually draped over her knee as she asked, "And how do you make this giant and quite stupid leap, Bells?"

"Because, Ara, you just are, okay? If you weren't here right now, he'd be focusing on what he has to do to keep my little girl from dying or being killed! If you weren't here, he'd still want to be friends with me." Bella hissed again in anger as Ara rolled her eyes and standing said "Well, there goes civil conversation, I suppose. I fucking knew that little moment we had a few days ago wasn't ever gonna hold water. But stupidly..." she trailed off as she paced the living room, her hand resting on her curvy hip as her other hand tangled in her long curly hair.

"Stupidly what, Ara? Because you're the one who stabbed me in the back.. I mean he's been coming by, he's called you and you eat lunch with him in the mall? You know how I feel about him, you could stop all this, but you're not." Bella raged.

Ara turned and stopped pacing in front of her sister, laughing as she rolled her eyes and said calmly, "Just get the fuck out of here. I'm not in the mood for your stupid shit today. I'm over it. Just because for some damn reason you feel threatened, you're gonna come over here and take it out on me? Don't think so, Bells. I'm not a little girl anymore, and I'm not just gonna sit here and take your shit either." as she bit her lower lip, stomach churning nervously as it always seemed to when she had a confrontation with someone. She hated fighting, she hated confrontations, but apparently, whether she wanted this one or not, Bella was hell bent on it happening.

"Me get out of here? Why'd you even come back here? You were fine in Florida. Why not go to Renee and Phil's when this happened? At least then I wouldn't have to worry about whether Jacob was actually going to do what he has to to keep Renesmee safe." Bella blurted as she glared angrily at her sister.

The jealousy and the anger she felt, the fear she felt for her own child's safety were all working together to make this into a potentially messy argument. Unless of course her little sister was still the runner, and she fled the room to get away from having to fight with Bella like she always did when they were kids.

From where Bella stood, though, it honestly didn't look like that was going to happen. The sound of Don't Cry by Guns N Roses played in the background as Ara paced and swore, muttered things incoherently to herself before stopping and turning, shutting the radio off, looking at her sister and asking bluntly, "What the fuck is this Volturi thing to Jacob? Why in the fucking hell does he have to do with your daughter with Edward, unless..."

She bit her thumb and asked calmly, "You fucked him.. Didn't you? And he's really Renesmee's father, and now this whole thing is happening, and as usual, you expect him to cover your own ass. Bella, I swear to Christ, you're the single most messed up girl on this entire planet."

Bella laughed dryly and then said "You have no idea just how wrong you are. But since you wanna throw accusations, Ara.. He has to protect her, because he is one of the protectors of the Quileute tribe. He's a shapeshifter, and they work with the Cullen family in cases like this. He's not Renesmee's father, but since you want to accuse me of things, mind if I ask why the hell you looked so jealous right now?"

"I didn't." Ara said calmly, her voice dropping to a deadly calm lower octave as she rubbed her forehead and looking at her sister, she smirked as she said calmly, "If you want to fuck them both, hey.. That's your life. But you're not fucking up my niece's life."

"What's that supposed to mean, Ara?" Bella asked angrily, a raised brow as Ara leaned in and said casually, "Bells.. Don't be dense.. You know exactly what I mean. And I'll do it too, if I have to."

"So you'd take my daughter from me.." Bella asked, gaping at her sister in disbelief, a very angry look in her reddish brown eyes as Ara nodded and said calmly, "If I think you're going to do something to hurt her, then yeah, Bella.. I would. Because she's just a kid, she doesn't deserve to have to be stuck in this shitshow you and her father and have going on and are apparently trying now to drag an unsuspecting Jacob into. I'm not gonna stand back and watch her get ignored like.. Nevermind.. Bella, if you're smart, you'll get the hell out of here. Now." Ara said angrily as she shoved her sister towards the living room door and pointed to the front door, her other hand on her hip.

Her stomach swarmed with nervous energy, she felt like she'd be sick at any moment, but all she could think of at this point really, were all the times that she'd been ignored when she was smaller, because Bella was always needier, Bella always came first.

She knew to some degree, of course , that she shoved Bella into the limelight and let herself be ignored, but seeing that her niece might be suffering the same fate now, it just made old wounds open up and she felt protective of the little girl. Bella and Edward already messed up her life enough, why in the hell should she have to suffer even more now?

Or maybe it was her own anger at herself, the grief that she felt because she'd lost her own child, the little boy she'd be expecting right now, and she'd been able to do nothing to stop it.

Bella stood there in the doorway, looking at her little sister in shock. Ara had never acted like this before, she'd never gotten this angry and she'd never said things like this out loud. She'd never fought like this before. While it angered Bella, because of what they were fighting over, of course, it also made her proud of her little sister, and it made her wish for one split second that she was more like that.

But only a split second, of course. Then the anger and the jealousy, the sting of the harsh words was right back, and her fury was taking over again.

"Get out. Now." Ara said again, calmly, her voice a deliberate and almost deadly calm as Bella turned and walked out, slamming the front door behind her. Ara sank down onto the couch and held her head in her hands, crying because all of this was rushing at her, and never before in her life had she been as confused or as angry as she had been since she'd finally had enough and left Ben, then came to live here.

"I shouldn't have said that. She's my sister.. And she's not a bad mother.. I mean not from what I've seen, at least. I hate fighting with her, God I hate it, I just.." she mumbled aloud as she heard a throat clearing from the doorway, heard Jacob ask "Is it okay to come in?" while peering into the room carefully.

Jacob had heard the tail end of the argument, and he'd wanted to actually punch Bella when Bella did what she wasn't allowed to and outed him during the argument. He just had to hope and pray that Ara had been so angry that she'd either not heard Bella, or she'd heard and written off what Bella said as a lie, something yelled at Ara to make it seem as if Ara weren't equally important or something. He prayed like hell the topic didn't come up in conversation.

She held a thumb up over her head, not bothering to look up as she said aloud, "Yeah, I only just completely lost my shit on Bella, nothing new, right? What brings you by here?"

Jacob sat down and asked quietly, "Are you okay?"

"I really don't know, Jacob.. To be honest, I don't have a fucking clue if I'm okay or not and it's really, really scaring the living hell out of me. I mean just now.. I've never been that mad at anyone before." Ara said as she jammed her hand into her eyes, drying them. The last thing she wanted was to look up and see him looking at her in pity.

He tilted her chin up to make her look at him, ignoring her usual habit of flenching as he said quietly, "Hey.. You can talk to me.. What's going on?"

"She stormed in here, accusing me of taking your friendship from her or something, and I accused her of fucking both you and Edward, and you being her father or something, I don't even remember, that's just how mad I was at the time and then somehow, it all looped around to me completely losing it and telling her that if I thought Nessie wasn't being taken care of, I'd take her from Bella. I'm horrible." Ara muttered.

Jacob shook his head then said quietly, "First of all, trust me.. I wouldn't touch your sister with a ten foot pole. I mean a few months ago, I might have tried, just for lack of what I really wanted, but now? Not a chance.. So yeah, unfortunately for Renesmee, that poor kid is Edward's daughter. Personally? I'm glad she's not mine, I mean not saying I don't want a kid one day, but Bella's always getting herself into some sort of jam and expecting everyone else to get her out or clean up after her. I kinda got sick of it... And no, Ara, you're not knows you didn't mean what you said, I'm sure things will work out sooner or later. Charlie never let you two stay mad at each other very long, remember?" as he looked at her in concern.

Ara sighed and said quietly, "I just hate fighting with my family. But just now, I swear to God, she came in here saying all that crap, untrue crap at that, and .. She's so childish sometimes it makes me shocked to realize that she really is the older of us." while looking at him, biting her lower lip.

There was that heat and tension between them again, the air around them almost hummed with electricity. She wasn't sure what to make of it, really, but she was doing her best to resist it. She'd told herself she was done. There was no such thing as happily ever after, at least not in her case apparently.

_'He's a tribe protector, a shape shifter' _kept repeating in her mind, and she looked up at him a moment, her eyes fixed on his as she laughed a little out loud and said "You're gonna laugh your ass off, but she actually seems to think that you're some kind of shapeshifter.. That you're one of the protectors of the Quileute tribe, and for some reason or another, you guys are going to protect her and Renesmee, Edward and the others from some Volturi family or something."

She looked at him a few moments, watching him closely as he stiffened and stood, pacing. She cleared her throat and asked, "Jacob?"

"She's telling the truth." Jacob said quietly as he felt his heart racing a mile a minute, felt his stomach churning, full of nervous energy. He watched her taking it in, biting his thumb as he said calmly, "It happened while you were living in Tampa, about a year after she moved back here.. Because of the Cullens and a few estranged Volturi members. So she wasn't lying about it."

Was she about to completely shut him out now? He felt his stomach churning, he felt like he'd throw up at any second, the longer she took to say something.

Ara sat there, looking at him covertly as she tried to get her head around what he was saying. She'd already had to pretty much accept the existance of vampires, why should shapeshifters be a stretch to accept?

And after all, he was her friend, he was a slight comfort to have around, especially right now.. And she'd always sort of been in love with him but too afraid to admit it to anyone.. "So those stories your dad told us when we were little..."

"Were actually all real. Look, Ara, I know this is a lot..." Jacob started as she looked up at him and said quietly, "Look.. If I can attempt to accept my sister being some undead thing... I think I can handle this too."

"Do you want me to go? I mean I just dumped a lot on you, and you've been through a lot.. Not to mention that fight just now.. You might need to rest, be alone..." Jacob said quietly, looking at her, hoping she said no.

"Actually, Jacob, you kinda did.. And I have been through a lot. The fight just now has been a really, really long time coming though.. And as far as me needing rest goes, I don't really feel like being alone in my own thoughts right now.. Just stay."

She didn't dare admit she needed and actually sort of wanted him there, she had too much stubborn pride in her for that.

"You're sure? I mean I can go and come back later. I should probably just go." Jacob said, standing. She bit her lower lip and grumbled to herself as she mustered the nerve to grab hold of his hand, pull him back down on the couch. "I said you could stay, Jacob. I'm not some weakling. I can handle all this. I've handled a lot worse lately. Just sit down and watch tv with me or something."

He grabbed the remote and turned on the television, scooted as close as he dared without breaching her 'comfort zone' for the moment, and asked casually, "You're sure you don't mind.."

"No, Jacob, I don't mind if you stay. We've been friends since we were babies, do you really think this is going to make me stop being friends with you? I didn't disown Bella when she told me she was a newborn vampire, did I?" Ara asked calmly as she looked at him, managing a smile.

She could see Jacob being a tribal protector for some odd reason.. She'd actually pictured him as such, when they were kids and Billy told them the stories around campfires on summer nights. Biting her lower lip, she mustered up a little courage and leaned in, kissing his cheek as she said softly, "Thanks.. For being so sweet. Bella was stupid to do whatever she did to make you leave for Canada." before settling back down into her own area on the couch.

He looked at her when she wasn't looking and smiled to himself a little. He'd made quite a bit of headway today. Maybe there was hope for all this to work out. All he had to do was keep being there, proving to her he wasn't going anywhere.

For now, her knowing he was a shifter was enough. He'd work up to telling her the rest. She needed time, and he wanted the timing to be perfect when he did tell her. But he was starting to feel that hope again, that maybe everything he really wanted and needed wasn't lost to him. Maybe he'd finally get her, maybe they'd finally be happy.

* * *

Notes:

Wow! Only 6 chapters in and already I have 2 reviews, 7 favorites and 10 follows. You guys are totally amazing, I didn't think to be honest, that the story would go over that well, considering I openly admit to hating the lead female canon character.

And in this chapter, Bella confronts Ara about what happened in the previous chapter, with Jacob.. She's angry and feeling clingy, of course.. If Ara comes off as a bitch in this chapter, sorry. I just personally feel that Bella should have had a kid. Edward strikes me as a potentially decent father for the most part, but Bella seemed to have too many issues to have a kid.. I know I cannot be the only one who felt that way.. Even though I probably am.

To shed some light on something.. Ara explodes the way she does, because (even though she LET everyone put Bella first,) she could have spoken up and ended it at any time as a child, but she was too much of a 'good girl' too worried about trying to be perfect for her parents, not cause them any stress, but anyway.. She sort of sees Bella focusing so much on Edward and Jacob, and being worried about them and not so much about Nessie, that sort of makes her feel like she did as a kid all over again with her parents and Bella.. Plus, she's got all that guilt about losing her own son recently, not being brave or strong enough to get out of a bad situation and maybe have saved his life.. So yeah, that's why she explodes like she does here.

Again, heavy bashing in this chapter, in the form of another sister fight. Sorry, but I did warn you in the notes at the very beginning of the story that there would be bashing.

Hope you guys like the story so far, and I pray to God I'm at least doing a halfway decent job at writing the different characters I write into the story as it goes. Love you all!

**Sorry about the long as all fuck authors notes. Just wanna make totally sure my ass is completely covered here so I don't get hate or something. **


	8. getting a little closer

"So Bella told her.. During an argument.. How'd she take it?" Embry asked as he snagged a chocolate chip muffin from the bowl of muffins that sat in the middle of Emily's table, looking at Jacob in earnest, waiting on an answer.

This.. The not knowing how your imprint was going to take knowing what you were, it was probably the biggest worry Embry actually had about the whole process, seeing as how he'd yet to imprint.

So he was curious, of course, especially given how skittish Ara was since moving to Forks and trying to work through what she'd been through in Miami, how she'd taken to knowing at least half of what Jacob had to tell her, now that the secret was out.

"Surprisingly well. Said that if she didn't completely disown Bella, she wasn't going to stop being friends with me, either." Jacob said as he bit into his own muffin, said aloud, "I think I made a little progress, I mean she talked a little more about all the stuff that happened to her in Miami. Said she's afraid that Ben's going to show up in Forks, and she'll wind up going back with him because she's that afraid of him."

"But you're not gonna let that happen, right?" Sam asked as he looked at Jacob then took a bite of the muffin in his hands and added, "If you need us.."

"I know, Sam.. But trust me.. I've seen the guy in pictures.. I think I can take him in human form. Wolf form would be overkill for the bastard." Jacob mused aloud as Seth muttered to himself, "Not that he wouldn't deserve it though."

"We're forgetting the bigger picture, guys.. She is Bella's little sister. And we all know how wishy washy the women in that family, at least the two I've met personally, Bella and their mother, are notorious for being." Leah said as she rose from her chair and stormed out of the room, refusing to hear anymore of the conversation.

The others in the pack exchanged looks and Jacob swore a little, sick of it, the way Leah wrote off anyone connected to Bella, just because of the way Bella treated him. He walked out after her and asked calmly, "What the hell is your problem with Ara? I mean you barely know her."

"She's Bella's sister, Jacob. Am I not the only one who sees what's going on here? You're obviously deluding yourself, yet again. Just do yourself a favor and don't stop looking for your real imprint. Besides, I'm not going to like Ara until I actually get to know her.. You guys are like brothers to me.. I'm as much a member of this pack as the guys are, Jacob.."

"And she is my imprint, Leah. Whether you like it or not, that's not going to change overnight. If it were fake, like it was with Bella, thank Christ that was fake, by the way, I'd know it by now, because it's that impossible to fake an imprint."

Leah nodded and then said quietly, "You're my friend. You're probably the only one who doesn't look at me with pity, knowing everything you know about Sam and I, how I felt about his imprinting on my own cousin. I just saw what Bella did to you, and I don't want you to get hurt and leave again. You're the only person I really have to talk to."

"If you tried to get to know her, I'm pretty sure you could talk to Ara too." Jacob suggested, really at a loss with what to do about this whole tension between Leah, towards his imprint, Ara. He understood it, and he didn't blame her, because he knew how skeptical she was, but he still didn't like it. Leah, of course, hadn't known Ara like she'd known Bella. Ara was in Florida when Bella moved here a few years ago.

It'd take longer for Leah to warm up to her, in other words. And until she did, she was going to continue doing this. He looked at Leah and said calmly, "I really did imprint on Ara. You'd be the first one to know if I hadn't.. Remember how you called me out on faking an imprint with Bella, just so I could at least try to save her from ending up with Edward and ruining her own life?"

Leah nodded and then said quietly, "Yeah.. Just.. You know how Bella is, Jake.. And Ara might say she can handle knowing you're a shifter.. But she might not be able to handle knowing this too." as she looked at him a few moments, then sighed and muttered, "I guess I'm just feeling left out too. I mean almost all of us have imprinted by now, and you're probably the only one who doesn't give me that pitying look."

"I'm not gonna stop being your friend, Leah, if that's what you're worried about." Jacob said as he turned to walk back inside the house. In an hour, the rest of the pack was going to the Cullen house for a meeting of sorts, and Jacob, well.. He'd pretty much decided that while he might have to fight with his pack, he wasn't going to the meetings. He really just didn't want to see Bella in all honesty, he didn't want to be reminded how stupid he'd almost been.

What if his attempts to stop Bella had worked? She'd never have been good enough, she'd never have been Ara and he knew that. Really, if he thought about it, which he tried not too that much, he wasn't any better than she'd been. He'd been using Bella because Ara wasn't there.

Bella used him because Edward left.

"Maybe she'll see how it feels now." Jacob mused to himself as he walked in and told the others he was leaving, heading to Ara's house. Sam nodded and said quietly, "I'll text you what happens.. Anything you want me to tell the Cullens or Bella?"

"Actually, no.. I'll tell Bella what I wanna tell her in person." Jacob said as Sam nodded. He walked out of the house, getting onto his motorcycle, heading towards Forks, heading towards Ara. The pack didn't need him at the meetings, Sam was the true alpha, he'd given Sam that job when he turned it down when Sam offered the spot to him.

In some ways, he really didn't even want to be secondary alpha, especially not knowing if he was staying after the battle was done, or if he'd be leaving again.

He'd told Sam not to pin any hopes on him staying, but with Ara back now, everyone just seemed to assume he'd be moving back.

What if they both wanted a completely new start after all this? What if she turned him away and chose to reject the imprint bond when he did tell her about her being his soulmate, his having imprinted her when he'd seen her again after all this time at the airport?

A lot of uncertainties faced him, and even though he hated it, he knew he'd have to deal with things as is, at least for now. She needed him here, and right now, she needed a friend more than anything. As the shifter that'd been lucky enough to imprint her, he was going to be that friend. Maybe then when she did need more, things would just sort of fall into place.

Forks lie ahead, and he smiled to himself a little, the motorcycle speeding up as he turned onto the street that Ara lived on, parked in front of her father's house.

Ara sat up from where she'd been lying on the living room sofa, watching a movie, and looked around. She knew she'd heard a motorcycle pulling in, she knew that most likely meant Jacob was here to see her.

"I wonder why he comes by so much.. I hope I'm not keeping him from something more important." she muttered as she turned the tv's channel, hid the kleenex that littered the coffee table in front of the couch and at least tried to clean up the place a little.

Jacob stood outside, laughed to himself when he saw her dashing around the living room, realized she was trying to hide the fact that she'd probably just been hibernating today, watching movies or something. "I see you in there. You better not still be in pajamas, Ara or..." he called out just as the door was thrown open, revealing Ara in a pair of leggings and a long pale pink t shirt, socks.

"I am not in my pajamas, Jacob." Ara said with a slight smile, as she stepped aside, let him into the house. He stepped in, sniffing the air as he asked, "What have you been cooking in here?"

"Pasta al dente and chicken with marinara. Why? Does it actually smell like it'll be worth a shit?" Ara asked, looking up at him as he nodded and said "It smells great.. And yes, Ara, leggings and a t shirt, where you're concerned, count as pajamas."

She shrugged and sighed then stretching said quietly, "Technically, Jacob, considering I sleep in undies and a tank top, no, they're not. Pajamas are things you sleep in, are they not?" while holding his gaze and managing to yet again get lost in his eyes. She blinked and shook her head a little, stepped back from him a good bit, they'd again been migrating together for some reason or another.

"Aren't you supposed to be at that thing? At the Cullen's?" Ara asked, remembering Bella had practically been bragging about an hour before, when she'd called to apologize, which of course, had turned into another argument.

Because she'd been bragging about seeing Jacob and everything, and for some reason or another, Ara lost her shit with Bella yet again.

Not that it made her jealous or anything, because as she kept telling herself, she was done with the concept of happily ever after.

_'Bella must have said , am I right?" _Jacob asked, trying to see if they were still able to do that weird thing they'd been able to do the past few days now, with their thoughts and minds. She looked at him a moment, and then a few seconds later, he heard her answer mentally, _'You know my sister. She claimed she was calling to apologize about the fight, she was more or less trying to stick it to me for some reason or another. No idea why she's jealous, I mean she's fucking married, what you do, who you choose to befriend shouldn't be any of her business now..' _before turning away to face the stove, grabbing an oversized stirring spoon, scooping some of the sauce and chicken onto it, turning back around to face him as she held it out and said "Careful, it's hot."

He tasted the food and groaned a little as he muttered "That's really, really good. You're a long way from burnt easy bake brownies now, huh?" earning him a middle finger and a playful glare as she again realized how close they stood, and again, backed away a little, her eyes darting around the small pale painted kitchen nervously.

He kicked himself mentally, he had to remember, she wasn't the same Ara she had been when they were kids. She'd essentially been through hell the past 2 years or so, and it was going to take some time for her to trust any man, even him.

"Sorry." he muttered as she sighed and said "I'm the one who should be apologizing.. I'm the basketcase, Jacob, not you. I just.. Things scare me now even when I try to keep them from scaring me. I hate it so much, it drives me insane.."

"You went through hell, Ara, it's not like everyone expects you to just snap back to normal." Jacob murmured as he trailed his thumb casually over her full lower lip and made her look at him, added firmly, "And it's okay.. I'm pretty sure your dad feels the same way I do right now after having found all that out, that like me, he's just glad you were actually strong enough to get out and leave that situation."

"Yeah, Jacob, but that doesn't excuse the fact that I shouldn't have ever gotten into it, in the first place. I'm supposed to be the good daughter, the one who doesn't make that kind of mistake." Ara insisted as she bit her lower lip.

Jacob shook his head, cautiously hugged her against him as best as he could, considering how jittery she got when touched suddenly. "It's okay.. People make mistakes. All you did was think you fell in love.. It's nothing you did, the guy was just a fucking jerk. Who's dead if he shows up around here." while holding her gaze, looking at her.

Ara looked at him a moment, but the ringing of the landline phone and then Bella's rather pissed dulcet tones on the answering machine as the call went to message, had them looking at each other, laughing a little.

"I'm almost tempted to pick it up and moan or something.. Almost." Ara said as Jacob coughed a little then rubbing his neck added, "I'm almost tempted to pick up and tell her to fuck off already, she married Edward, she's not supposed to have this much interest in me. But I'm saving all that for in person." as he smirked at Ara who said with a shrug, "Don't let me be in the room when that happens. She already thinks I'm back for the sole purpose of bewitching you away or something." while looking at him.

Okay, so she wasn't, but she wouldn't mind if she finally got her old feelings off her chest. Now, however, was not the time. She had a lot of stuff to work through. Even if she weren't done with the whole happily ever after thing.

Which she still stood by the fact that she though she felt all those old feelings she'd felt for him during childhood shoving their way determinedly to the forefront, all over again.

"Right, because she owns me or something." Jacob said quietly as he looked at her, leaned in a little, brushed her hair back behind her ear and remarked, "I always liked it better down." quietly. She felt her heart rate pick up a little as his warm breath hit her neck and she looked up at him, saw the slight glimmer in his dark brown eyes. Blinking, she bit her lower lip and then muttered "My hair looks like shit when it's down. It's not cute curly like my niece's, it's like, brillo pad frizzy curly or something. It's a nightmare." as her face heated under his continuing steady gaze.

She realized again that they were migrating closer, out of habit apparently, and she again stepped back a little. But not as much as she had been all the times prior that this had managed to happen.

The phone rang again, and she walked over, picked it up and laughed as she heard her sister angrily asking for Jaocb.  
"He's actually not here."

"Just let me have the phone, Ara." Jacob said with a calm tone as he took the phone and said to Bella, "Look.. I came back just to help train some of the newer shifters. I did not come back for you, and I really want nothing to do with you while I'm here." sitting the phone back down in the cradle as he turned to look at her and said with a smile, "Oops?"

Ara burst into laughter and said "Are you hungry? I'm actually kind of hungry now." while grabbing plates and forks, pouring them both some into a glass.

"Normally, I'd have red wine with this.. But considering as how I'm 19 and my dad doesn't keep it around.. Yeah.." Ara said as she managed an apologetic smile and sat down at the table across from him.

In her cottage, Bella stared at the phone in her hands, Jacob's words ringing in her ears, angrier than she had been in a while. Clearly, Jacob, for whatever reason, didn't care what happened to Renesmee, or to her for that matter.

Apparently, these days, he was all about Ara, and that thought made her so angry she could taste it. The anger was building, and she planned to confront him next time she saw him, if she saw him anytime soon.

* * *

Notes:

Wow! Only 6 chapters in and already I have 3 reviews, 7 favorites and 12 follows. You guys are totally amazing, I didn't think to be honest, that the story would go over that well, considering I openly admit to hating the lead female canon character.

GymnastQueen, hope this satisfies at least part of your request. The rest of it, trust me, is incoming. :) I just thought this would be a good thing to do, when you made the suggestion in your review. So credit for this little idea goes to you my dear. I loved it. And thanks to everyone who's reviewed thus far! I love you all, you're amazing.

Hope you guys like the story so far, and I pray to God I'm at least doing a halfway decent job at writing the different characters I write into the story as it goes. Love you all!


	9. complications

"What the hell is your problem, Jacob? Did you just not care to come to the meeting last night, or were you too busy with Ara? You cannot get distracted, Jacob, my daughter needs you.. I need you." Bella fumed as calmly as she could, standing in the doorway of Jacob's garage, looking in at him, reddish brown eyes glowing with an unmasked fury and slight jealousy.

He looked up, dropped the wrench he'd been holding, calmly put down the carbeurator he'd been working on and then began to laugh.. He laughed so hard he was almost shaking and then he stopped, looked at her and shrugged, keeping quiet. He knew she fed off of this to some degree, it didn't take a genius to figure that one out and he had a while back. She loved being the center of attention. So giving in to her childish attempt at a stupid fight was sinking to her level, it was giving her what she wanted and craved..

Attention.

"Well? Are you going to answer me? And what the hell was so funny about that, Jacob? Do you just not care if anything happens to me or Renesmee?" Bella raged on, doing her best to keep her voice calm and even, nearly failing miserably at this point.

But her continuing to just worry about her own ass, what might happen to her, what he could do for her nagged at him, and his short fuse was lit around the time she said quietly "Ara is only after you, Jacob, because she knows it'll hurt me, she knows how close we were always and she's jealous. She doesn't care about you. She's not the one you promised to love until their heart stopped beating.. Is she?"

He shook his head and said in a stiff tone, barely keeping his voice down as he replied, " Since you want this argument to happen, Bella, it'll happen. And you're not going to like what I say.. Trust me.. Are you really sure you want to keep pushing me?" while looking at her, annoyed and a little more than angry at this point.

"Well, if you're going to say something, Jacob, say it." Bella said as she looked at him, waiting, her arms crossed, full on pout on her face. He rolled his eyes and said "Actually, no, Bella, I stopped giving a shit about what happened to you when you turned your back on what we might have had and chose that disgusting leech. It could have been easier with me, but you didn't love me. And now that I'm over that, you're going to honestly come here and confront me about not caring what happens to you as the result of a mess you got yourself into? Don't think so." pausing to take a sip of the bottled water on the table he had various parts strewn out on before continuing with his tirade, saying calmly, but angrily, "And as far as Ara goes, Bella.. I'm starting to see that maybe you're the one who's jealous. Because I'm happy now, and you cannot stand it, you cannot stand knowing that you're not leading me around by the nose anymore. That I found someone who might just like me for me, not what I can do for them whenever they want me or need me around."

"I'm not doing that. I've never done that. Just because I didn't return the feeling when you came onto me repeatedly then, Jacob.. You're really just going to stand by and let something happen to an innocent child?" Bella asked as she looked at him, shocked at his words, the serious tone in his voice. He wasn't joking. He was finally and completely done with her.

"Why can't your husband protect you and your daughter? Huh? I mean this is his problem, thank God, and not mine. I thought I made it clear I was done with your shit when I left town.. For 7 months almost. I'm only back here to help Sam. And to be with Ara.. Oh and by the way.. All that stuff I said to you? I never meant it. I was temporarily insane.. I basically used you because I really wanted Ara all along, you were the closest substitution."

Bella gaped at him. Over the phone, when he said it, she'd written it off as his being angry with her still for choosing Edward over her. Now, seeing Jacob face to face as he spoke the words again, she got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She could look into his eyes and tell he completely and totally meant every single word he said just now.

About everything. The shoe was on the other foot now, and it was hurting her like hell. She sighed and looked at him then said calmly, "Ara's not good for you, Jacob. She doesn't love you, she's selfish. Probably more selfish than you claim I am. She always has been. Don't you get it, to her, this is some stupid competition."

He laughed and shook his head as he said aloud, "Actually, Bella, she hasn't made a move on me, not a single time. She hasn't tried to lead me on, either. She's been completely and totally honest with me, and it's more than I can say about you and the way you treated me."

Bella studied him a moment and then asked, "Why her?"

"Why not her?" Jacob asked in return as he studied her, a smirk growing on his face before he dropped his final bombshell by saying, "For one thing.. I've always loved her more. I just put up with you, then used you to try and replace her because she wasn't here. But she is now, and she's the one I actually want.. Besides, Bella, she's my imprint."

"So it's some stupid imprinters bond making you say all this.. You don't really mean it, it's the genetic thing talking." Bella said hopefully as Jacob laughed and then said with a gleam in his eye, "Oh no.. I actually mean every single word of it. I'm completely and totally done with you now. You're nothing to me. So if I wanna skip those stupid meetings then yeah.. I will. Because frankly, Bella, I wish you'd never moved back here. I wish she had instead." Jacob said as he picked his tool back up, started back to work on the carbeurator he'd been working on before she stormed in about 10 minutes ago, ready to spit nails it looked like.

She stood there, gaping at him, shocked. Shuffling her feet, she tried sniffling.. Maybe if she showed him pain, if she showed him tears or some kind of emotion, he'd back down and admit it was just the imprint bond and not real love he felt for her sister Ara.

She hated this, not being first for once. She really and truly hated it.

"The conversation's done, Bella.. You can go now." Jacob said calmly as he kept working and didn't bother wasting time to look up at her or acknowledge that she was leaving. The sooner she got away from him, the better. Even being around her now that she was one of them made him sick and disgusted. She'd annoyed him before, yeah, with her obsession with Edward, but now she was one of them..

Now the one he really wanted all along was back in his life and he had no use for her. And finally, he'd told her all this, out loud and not in some damn letter, like he'd tried to before, or over the phone, like he had about a week or two ago when they'd first had this discussion.

She muttered something that sounded like 'Asshole' and walked out, kicking at rocks on her way out of the garage. He shut the door firmly and then said aloud, "Finally. She's gone." while taking a few deep breaths. Then he realized that he'd told her about Ara being his imprint.. He hadn't been intending on it, because he knew that as twisted as it was, Bella would take that and turn it, make Ara believe that the only reason he felt anything for her, was because some genetic quirk made it happen.

Groaning, he punched a wall and grumbled to himself. If Bella told Ara anything, he was personally going to choke her. It might not kill her, but it'd make him feel one hundred percent better, he'd be almost willing to guarantee it.

"And I'm wondering why she wasn't already placed in a padded cell.. Has she just completely lost her grip on sanity since she joined them?" he mused aloud before answering seconds later, "To lose sanity, you kinda have to have it before.. If there's one thing I know about Bella by now, it's that she obviously didn't.. I mean who goes into a comatose depressed and almost catatonic state for almost a year because some jackass breaks up with them?" while trying not to laugh.

He paced a few moments.. It was really too soon to tell Ara about her being his imprint, he'd made a little progress with her, but not as much as he'd wanted to before he even began planning how to tell her.. Now, with his stupidly blurting out what'd happened to Bella in anger, he might have to bite the bullet and tell her sooner than he wanted to, risking everything.

The thought had him worried because she'd already been through way more than someone should have to go through alone. And they were just getting closer now. And if he knew Bella like he thought he did at least, she'd probably break her neck to tell Ara, just to twist it and make Ara feel as if somehow, the imprint meant nothing, that Bella would and forever be first with him.

Ara had enough insecurities thanks to her sister already, and this thought had him in a rage before he even fully realized it. "Fuck.. Why'd I go and do that?" he mumbled as he lightly beat his head against the wall of the garage and tried to think of some way to keep all of this from ending the way Bella wanted it to end, from destroying everything he really wanted and almost had within his reach at last.

While driving home, Jacob's words echoed in Bella's mind and she felt more like crying than she had in her entire life. A jealous and angry rage flowed through her again, and she said quietly, "And she comes home, on purpose, to screw up my life." while the words _'I've always loved her more.. She's my imprint now.'_ kept repeating themselves over and over. She sat in her car, in the driveway, shaking in anger almost.

She wondered for a split second what might happen if she went and told Ara just part of what Jacob told her.. But she ignored the thought. It was a desperate measure, and she wasn't desperate enough yet. But if she had to, to keep her daughter and herself safe, she'd do it.

Ara sat in the bedroom at her father's house, reading a book of Quileute tribal legends she'd found in Bella's old closet, biting her nails. Things about the way Jacob behaved around her and looked at her were starting to click into place.. But did she dare even begin to hope the whole thing about imprinting or whatever it was called in the legend be true?

And if it were, how would she handle not knowing if it were just some genetic thing that made him want and love her? She sighed as she stood and stretched then tossed the book onto the desk in frustration as she reminded herself, "It won't matter anyway, because I'm broken now. And I doubt it happened. But it's a good reason not to let myself fall any harder than I have already.. Because one day, he will imprint, and if what that book says is true, then thanks to his genes, he'll have no choice but to move on and love someone else.." while scowling at her reflection in the full length mirror on the closet door.

The question remained now.. Having read all that about his tribe's shapeshifters, did she confront him with what she knew and ask him all the questions she had, or did she just let it go and keep on trying her best and failing miserably to keep him out, keep herself from falling for him completely so she wouldn't be hurt when the time came?

Why did everything have to be so damn complicated?

* * *

Notes:

Wow! Only 8 chapters in and already I have 4 reviews, 9 favorites and 16 follows. You guys are totally amazing, I didn't think to be honest, that the story would go over that well, considering I openly admit to hating the lead female canon character.

Hope you guys like the story so far, and I pray to God I'm at least doing a halfway decent job at writing the different characters I write into the story as it goes. Love you all!


	10. tensions rising

"So she stormed into your garage and bitched you out.. About not being stuck up her ass?" Ara asked in disbelief as she walked around the bedroom, her hand in her hair, gaping at the phone in her hand. Apparently, Bella had really lost her shit as of late. Did she not realize she was married? Or that when you get married, any and all other men should then cease to exist, unless they're family, or a mutual friend of both parties in the marriage?

Jacob chuckled and then said calmly, "She didn't like what I had to say back, either." as he walked around his garage, trying not to laugh as he thought of the argument between himself and Bella earlier that day. "She hasn't come over and started in on you, right?" he asked, his brows knit together in concern as he looked at the picture of her he had on his phone, smiled to himself a little.

"No, but if she does, I'll probably piss myself laughing at how stupid she is now. I mean seriously, are we all fucking kids again or something and I didn't get the memo?" Ara wondered aloud as she fell back onto her own bed, looking up at the ceiling, trying to picture him, what he might be doing right now, then mentally kicking herself for doing that when the image she pictured was enough to make her cheeks heat up and her heart skip a few beats. She heard tools in the background so she knew he was out in his father's garage.

"What on earth are you doing anyway? I mean it's 9 pm." Ara asked as she laughed a little and then rolled over onto her stomach, turning on the radio that sat on the nightstand next to the bed.

"I'm working on the damn car. I swear to God, if one thing isn't completely fucking up on it, it's a whole other thing. I'm tempted to just ditch 4 wheels and stick to the motorcycle at this point." Jacob said as he growled in anger when the wrench slipped and wrapped his knuckles almost hard enough to make him want to vomit.

"Jacob.. It's 9 pm. You should just let it go until tomorrow or something." Ara said quietly, concerned. "Did you just hurt yourself?"

"Kinda, yeah." Jacob said as he added, "Just dropped a wrench on my damn knuckles that's all. Nothing major." making her shake her head and then say in a firm and slightly bossy tone, "Jacob Ephriam Black.. Get your butt in the house now. Stop trying to fix the damn Rabbit in the dark."

"It's not dark, exactly.. I've got a smallish spotlight and a flashlight." Jacob explained as he smiled a little, raked his hand through his hair and then said "But since you insist, Ara, I'll go in."

"Good.. Because I would have totally driven over there and dragged you into the house by that hair of yours." Ara joked a little, laughing aloud. It felt good to laugh, she hadn't done it in so long by this point, she'd forgotten what the sound of her own laugh was like in all honesty.

"Thanks. But as far as you dragging me, Ara, I think we both know that will not happen. Like ever.. You're what, 5 foot tall and maybe 98 pound soaking wet? I highly doubt you can get me inside." Jacob joked as Ara scowled a little at the phone in her hand playfully and then said in a mock hurt tone, "I am 5'3, Jacob.. And I weigh a lot more than 98 pounds. Try 130ish." laughing a little as he licked his lips, this discussion making him picture her body, the way it curved in all the right places.

She was small in height, but she wasn't twig sized. She had a little more meat on her bones than her idiot sister. He liked that. He grumbled at himself as he tried to get his mind off of her in that way and then coughing said "Anyway, how was your day?"

"Apparently, I'm going to be fitting people for bras at work. Talk about awkward, huh?" Ara asked with a slight laugh as she sighed and then said in a quieter tone, "About my idiot sister.. Sorry.. I mean she's obviously going batshit crazy for some reason or another." while rubbing her forehead.

Call waiting beeped and Ara looked at it, rolling her eyes as she saw Bella's home number pop up. She ignored the call and switched back over to Jacob. The question was on the tip of her tongue, but she didn't dare ask him. Once she opened Pandora's Box, there wasn't any closing it back, and right now, at this point in her trying to get her life back together, she just wasn't sure how many more bombshells she could actually take without losing it completely.

"So.. Why was she so mad?"

"Basically because I was with you last night, not at the pack meeting with Sam and the other shifters. I told her that I'm just here to train them. I am not here to see her or to reconnect. I could frankly give a flying fuck in space less what happens to her now, that's her husband's job.. Not mine." Jacob said as he sipped on his bottle of soda, asked Ara, "Did she try and call you just now?"

"But of course.. Someone's getting all her attention, she's gotta fix that. God forbid other people have actual real world problems. I mean I get that Nessie's in deep right now, but it's sort of Edward and Bella who put their own kid into that situation. I love my niece and I just hope that her parents being total fucking morons doesn't wind up punishing her somehow." Ara said quietly as Jacob chuckled and then said "She was pretty mad earlier.. About us spending so much time together."

"And she can suck my imaginary dick too. I've told her a thousand times I am no fucking threat. She's always been the preferred one, not me. I'm just back to put my damn life back together. I didn't ask to be dragged into her breakdown." Ara said, making Jacob snort and laugh hysterically then say quietly, "God I missed you. I forgot how easy it was just to sit and talk to you for half a night or something."

"Haha, like that one summer Dad kept getting mad because we kept running down his cordless phone batteries, huh?" Ara asked as she smiled to herself and said quietly, "I missed you too. And you're helping me so much more than you realize right now, just sticking around and putting up with me."

He smiled and said "Anything for you, Arabella." as she shivered, bit her lower lip. The way he said her full name.. It sent tingles down her spine. It just sounded sexier somehow, the way he said it.

She palmed her face and shook her head at herself. She'd told herself already, she didn't need to go down this road, if what she read about the shifters were true.. He might imprint one day, and then she'd lose him for good and she'd rather not have him like she wanted him, than to have him and have to lose him because of some damn genetic thing.

He heard that sigh of hers, the thinking and sad one and he asked, "Everything alright?" while biting his lip and walking around in his bedroom, bending down to pull off his boots, then kicking out of his jeans, flopping into the bed on his back, looking up at the ceiling.

"Yeah, just.. Thinking about stuff. It's nothing." Ara said quietly as he said calmly, "Bullshit. That sigh didn't really sound like it was nothing Ara. What's going on?"

"Just thinking, Jacob. Trust me, you don't wanna know." Ara said as Jacob kept pushing, for some reason, worried that somehow, Bella revealed his other secret, about her, and now she was panicked.

He strained and with a little concentration, he got into her mind again like he had been doing. He hated doing it, but she obviously was not going to tell him what was going on in her mind tonight.

_'He'll imprint one day, on someone else. I'll lose my damn chance before I even get it. I'd rather not have what I want and not know what I'm missing, than have it and lose it because of something out of his control, something he can't fight.. That's assuming those stories were true and not just a bunch of folklore or something..' _Ara thought to herself as she bit her lower lip, cleared her throat, snapping Jacob out of his strain.

He rubbed his forehead and chuckled a little, shocked at what'd happened. Obviously, Bella hadn't told her anything, she'd simply found out about the imprint process through reading or looking up the tales about the shifters in his tribe online. And she had it totally wrong. He was a lot farther along in actually winning her, having her like he wanted, making her fall for him as he'd fallen for her twice in his life already than he'd thought he was. This shocked him because she'd been good at not showing it.

For now, he said nothing, he just filed away what he'd heard her thinking just now for later. Maybe it'd be easier when he told her. He knew now without a doubt that where she was concerned, the imprint hadn't rejected. She felt something in return, the feelings she'd apparently had and kept well hidden for a long time now were even stronger with the imprint having happened.

In his case, there was no question this was true. He thought about her all the time, everything reminded him of her, he worried about her when he wasn't with her.

"Jacob.. I said, are you still there?" Ara asked, stifling a slightly strained laugh as he muttered "Yeah. Are you sleepy?"

"A little, yeah." she admitted as he said "I don't want to, but we do both have to work tomorrow. So I'm gonna let you go to sleep."

"Night Jake." Ara yawned as he laughed and said "Night Arabella." sending shivers through her body with his saying her full name again. She smiled and after hanging up, she rolled over and wiggled under the covers, sliding her head halfway beneath the pillow because her sister was still attempting to call.

"Go to bed, Bella, damn it. I'm not in the mood to deal with your crazy train tonight." Ara muttered as she started to drift off to sleep.

Bella gaped at her phone and went for her keys, but Edward put his hand over hers, shaking his head as he said "I've held it as long as I can. It's either him or me, Bella. I'm sick of the way you get jealous when anyone even thinks about befriending that dog."

Bella laughed a little and said "I'm not doing that. I'm pissed, Edward, because Jacob's just not trying to even attempt helping save our daughter."

"If that were it, Bella, I'd understand. But we both know that's not the only reason you're not letting go." Edward said quietly. Bella moved to hug him but he looked at her, grabbing the keys to his Volvo and turning, he walked out the door of the cottage.

She sank down on the couch with her head in her hands. "This isn't fair!" she fumed as she wiped at her eyes and then looked at the phone lying on the table in their dining room, growling aloud in anger. From behind her, Rosalie spoke up and said casually, "You do realize that if you don't let go of your old life, Bella, and certain ties.. It's never going to work with you two.. Right?"

"It's just that Jacob's always been there for me and now it's like he could care less. He's supposedly in love with my sister and personally, it's driving me insane. But I love Edward.. I just can't let go for some reason." Bella explained as Rosalie glared a moment and then said "Well either you let go, or you're going to wind up completely making a mess of this. But either way, if you don't get it together, Bella, then the Volturi are going to use that against us when we face them. And that means that Renesmee will wind up suffering."

Bella bit her lower lip, glaring back as she said calmly, "My daughter is not going to be hurt. Everyone keeps insisting I'm this bad mother.. I'm not. I love my little girl."

"And she should be first. Not a man.. Certainly not a man you're not married to." Rosalie said as she turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her.

"We never should have turned her." she muttered to herself, immediately wishing she hadn't thought it aloud. But Bella hadn't really been mature enough to begin with.. Now that she was one of them, she didn't seem to grasp the concept that there were some aspects of her old life, mainly the dog she kept trying to lead around by the nose, that simply had to go.

And she didn't want to see Bella throw away her own relationship with her sister, not that there actually was much of one to begin with. She'd have to watch her family age and die, and she'd remain.. As a vampire for longer than Bella had been, she knew how it'd feel to do that. And she knew that if Bella kept at this, which she probably would, the girl was simply that determined for whatever reason.. She knew that Bella would regret having alienated her family when they were gone and she was still here.

Ara sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes as she looked at the clock on the nightstand. "Damn it, seriously?" she muttered to herself, wondering what had woken her up in the first place.. Then she remembered that she'd thought for some strange reason, she'd found herself hearing Jacob thinking without really trying to do it.

But she'd been asleep, so now, awake, she couldn't remember what he'd been thinking. She raked her hands through her hair as she rolled over and shoved her head back beneath the pillow hoping to fall asleep this time by some miracle.

Jacob lie in bed, going back over what'd happened just now that'd woken him out of a dead sleep. He'd found himself in Ara's thoughts, and he'd actually finally been hearing what really happened to her while she was in Miami. And what she was afraid of, why she didn't talk about the situation she got out of only barely.

Because she might not have gotten out of it completely. For whatever reason, she was still convinced that her ex was going to show up here and do something to hurt her. And then there was her whole misunderstanding of what she'd read about imprinting in the book of Quileute legends she'd found in Bella's old room. But then again, he hadn't gotten around to telling her she was actually his imprint.

She'd already had to adjust to his being a shifter, vampires being real and her sister chosing/having to become one and her niece being half human and half vampire, not to mention the loss of the baby she'd have been expecting any day now had she not lost it, and the fear of an ex coming back and doing something.

He was trying to pick the best time to tell her.

It still surprised him just how much headway he'd made with her since she'd moved back almost 3 weeks ago, however. She'd been damn good at not indicating anything either way.

"I wonder if this is just a temporary quirk, or if we're gonna be able to do this forever. It'd be kinda neat." Jacob said to himself as he smiled a little, rolled over, tried to get back to sleep.

He'd figure something out soon. He knew he had to make some sort of move soon or he'd go insane. Even if it was a small one. He'd already waited this long.

He didn't want his chance slipping away again.

* * *

Notes:

Wow! Only 9 chapters in and already I have 5 reviews, 9 favorites and 17 follows. You guys are totally amazing, I didn't think to be honest, that the story would go over that well, considering I openly admit to hating the lead female canon character.

Hope you guys like the story so far, and I pray to God I'm at least doing a halfway decent job at writing the different characters I write into the story as it goes. Love you all!


	11. tensions exploding

Charlie stood between his two daughters, a hand on each of their chests as he looked from one to the other. He'd just gotten in from work to find the two of them practically brawling in the living room. It wasn't anything new, but it wasn't anything he liked seeing either. He'd always thought that one day, with any luck, things between the girls would work out and they'd get to a place in life where they liked one another.

Apparently, however, that day was not going to be today. Today was pretty much like any other of the thousands of times in the past he'd had to break up sibling violence. "Okay, one of you two start talking. What started this?" he asked them as both girls pointed at each other and Ara said calmly, "I did nothing, Bella.. You're the fucking nutcase who stormed in here, turned off the television, in the middle of my favorite tv show might I add, and started accusing me of trying to break up your marriage. You're the one doing that, why the hell do you need my help, sister, when you're doing such a damn splendid job of it on your own?" looking at her older sister in annoyance.

Bella glared and said quietly, "If you'd just leave Jacob alone and let him focus on what it's his damn job to do, this wouldn't be necessary."

"No, Bells, if we'd just thrown you in the fucking nut house when all this with that fucking creep you call a husband started, none of this would be necessary. But of course, we didn't, now here we are. It's not Jacob's job to make sure Nessie's safe. It's your job, as her mother. And her father's job. If Edward's upset and raising hell at you, for once I actually do not blame him."

Bella growled but Charlie caught hold of her then said "What do you mean Nessie being safe? What does she mean, Bells?" as he looked at Bella, firm glare, expecting an answer."

"Don't ask, don't tell.. Remember dad?" Bella said as Ara said quietly, "What she means, dad, is that some family of nutjobs, much like her husband and his batshit insane family, have it in their head that Bella and Edward turned a human kid into a vampire, now they want to kill Nessie or something. And this moron thinks that Jacob is obligated to protect her and that family of nutjobs she married into."

Charlie looked at Bella and Bella sighed as she said "He's a shapeshifter, Dad.. Remember? He kinda has to.. And thanks to Ara distracting him, on purpose, he hasn't been to a single strategy meeting Carlisle's had." to which Ara responded with a malicious smirk, "Damn it, Bella, Jacob owes you nothing. You treated him like shit. You used him. Personally? If I were you, I'd just be glad he hasn't got every single shifter on the res after you and your little family of nutfucks."

"And that, Ara, includes your niece... which you claim you'd do so much better at raising than me." Bella pointed out as Ara looked at her father and said "Yeah, I said that. And I meant it. At least if I took Ness and ran the hell away from all her insanity, the poor kid might have some shred of a normal fucking life. With a parent who actually wants her safe and happy."

"I LOVE MY DAUGHTER! AT LEAST I DIDN'T GET MY KID KILLED!" Bella shouted as Ara growled and reached over her father, her fist making contact with Bella's nose, making her scowl when it hurt her hand more than it did her sister. She grabbed her rental car keys and jacket and then said "I'm outta here. Bella, if you're smart you'll be gone when I come back." leaving Charlie alone with his daughter.

Charlie stared at his daughter a moment and then said calmly, "She made quite a few good points just now, Bella. You are married now. Which means no Jacob. You are a parent now. Renesmee's well being should be your first and pretty much only concern. Not how close Ara and Jacob are getting these days. Not how little time Jacob spends playing hero. You chose Edward. And if you want to keep him, Isabella Marie, this is not how you go about doing that. Now.. You're going to sit down, and you're going to tell me everything I ask about. No more of this don't ask and don't tell stuff. Because if my granddaughter is in danger, I want to know everything."

Bella glared at the door and said stiffly, "Fine. But you're not going to like it."

"It doesn't matter. I just want to know."

Meanwhile, Ara drove as fast as she could towards La Push, towards Jacob. She wiped at her eyes as she felt the guilt, the rage and the pain all welling up inside her. To some degree, what Bella shouted at her back there was right. But Bella's continuing to butt in and get angry with her because Jacob seemed to keep showing up around her was not her fault.

She pulled into his driveway and Jacob walked out onto the porch, having heard a car pulling into the driveway that lead to the house. He eyed the car in concern, and when she got out, he walked over and asked quietly, "Are you okay?"

"No. I had to get out of there. If I hadn't, I'd have strangled her with my bare damn hands." Ara muttered as she went into his arms, her head resting against his bare chest. There was no stiffness in her gesture or the way she touched him this time. She sniffled and looked up at him as she said quietly, "We had a huge fight tonight, it was so bad that Dad had to get in the middle of it to break us up."

Jacob nodded and putting his arm around her, he lead her into the house, into his room, sitting down on his bed, patting the spot beside him. She flopped down and then said quietly, "She was right though. If I'd left my ex.. I never would have lost my own kid." while studying her hands intently, taking deep breaths.

Jacob looked at her and then tilting her chin up, he said quietly, "No, Ara, she wasn't. The guy was a psycho. And you were scared to death of him."

She sighed and then said quietly, "I'm just so sick of her shit. I mean she keeps insisting that I'm making you come around, I'm making you spend time with me or something. I'm not. But I mean.. I do want you around.. You make me feel.. Nevermind. I told myself I was done with all of it." she muttered as she looked up at him a moment.

_'I'm gonna do something.. Just don't punch me, okay?' _Jacob thought to her as she bit her lower lip, looked at him with a raised brow. He leaned in and pulled her onto his lap, then pulled her into a kiss. She tried to fight it at first, then groaning, her lips parted, she started to kiss back, even deepened the kiss.

_'I wouldn't have punched you.. But I'm so messed up, Jake.. I mean are you really sure it's worth the waste of time?' _she asked him in her mind as she stared at him intently when the kiss broke. He nodded and said quietly, "It is. And no, Ara, you're not messed up."

She sighed and said quietly, "Either way, she's in deep shit with Charlie now. I told him damn near everything I knew about the situation before I stormed out, after I punched her first though." making Jacob chuckle and mutter "You punched her?"

"Right in the fucking nose. I just finally had enough. I couldn't stand there and listen to her worrying about everything and everyone but her own damn kid."

"Because it makes you feel like you did when you guys were younger, all over again.. Am I right?" Jacob asked as he leaned in, his arms around her to hold her in his lap. She nodded and said "Exactly. I mean it's just like watching me as a kid, all over again. And she doesn't deserve that."

Jacob nodded and said quietly, "No, she doesn't. And you didn't, either." as he looked at her and then asked, "Are you hungry?"

"A little, yeah.." she muttered as he said casually, "Quil and the guys decided tonight was the perfect night to set things on fire and roast hot dogs.. Wanna go down to the beach with me?" with her nodding as she said quietly, an embarassed laugh, "I was in such a hurry to get outta there, I didn't even actually stop to put on clothes.. I'm in my pajamas.."

"And you're sexy.. You can wear some of my sweats or something, if it bothers you that much." Jacob joked as she laughed and then pointed out, "Yeah.. So they'll fall down and you'll see my ass. Not happening, Jacob."

"It was worth a try, Ara." Jacob said as he smiled and stood, carrying her out of the house on his back, his father laughing behind him and muttering, "Damn kids.. Can't get it right until they've done it all wrong first."

Jacob laughed as they stepped onto the beach, standing her on her own two feet. Snickering, Seth said casually, "Nice pants.."

"Oh hahah, funny. If I hadn't gotten out of my dad's house, I swear to God, I'd have killed my own sister." Ara said as Leah looked at her choking a moment in shock and asked with a smirk, "Why?"

"Because she's a bitch and I'm sick of her shit, really. I mean it's not up to you guys to protect her and that nutfuck family she's married into. Had she married an actual man and not a fucking pansy.." Ara trailed off, her hand going to her mouth as Leah stared at her a moment, shocked a little, then burst into laughter. "Okay, maybe she's not so bad." Leah muttered to Jacob who mouthed back "Told you so."

Paul stopped laughing and held out a hotdog as he said "So she did go over there, furious because Jacob ditched the meeting to see you, huh? I told you, Jared, 20 bucks said she'd confront her sister about that." while Jared dug around in a pocket, grumbling.

"And I can proudly cross off punching a vampire in the face from my bucket list." Ara mused making Paul snicker and then mutter something under his own breath about karma finally coming back around. Ara looked at him and then said aloud, "So you're the guy she punched.."

"Pretty much. I wouldn't call it a punch.. More like an annoying ass mosquito biting my face." Paul said as Ara choked on hotdog, smiling at Jacob and saying through a mouth full, "I like that guy." making Paul and the other shifters that sat around the fire laugh.

Sam coughed a little then speaking up said "So Jacob tells us that you two can hear each other thinking?" looking at Ara pointedly. Personally, he thought Jacob should just tell the girl about her being his imprint, but he understood why Jacob wasn't yet. Normally, Sam would be totally against it, but Jacob had control by this point, and he did seem to think Ara might be in real danger with that ex of hers..

Jacob gave Sam a look and Ara nodded as she said "Yeah, we can.. I mean it's not controlled or anything, and I have no freaking clue why or how, because obviously, I'm not one of them or one of you guys.." while biting into another hotdog thoughtfully.

She got the feeling that they all knew something she didn't.. Something that Jacob wasn't telling her. But for now, she kept quiet, mostly just calming her nerves from the scene back at her fathers earlier. It felt more relaxed here, even if she wasn't too sure if Leah actually liked her, the rest of them seemed to be okay with her being around, a lot more accepting than they had been the day she'd eaten with them in the mall.

Jacob glared at Sam and leaned in to whisper, "Are you alright?" to Ara who seemed to be in deep thought. She nodded and said quietly, "Yeah. I'm glad I came by here. I feel a lot better."

* * *

Notes:

Wow! Only 10 chapters in and already I have 6 reviews, 11 favorites and 19 follows. You guys are totally amazing, I didn't think to be honest, that the story would go over that well, considering I openly admit to hating the lead female canon character.

Hope you guys like the story so far, and I pray to God I'm at least doing a halfway decent job at writing the different characters I write into the story as it goes. Love you all!


	12. telling her everything

"Technically, Bella, nobody actually has to help you. The whole thing with Ara, it stops.. Or nobody helps you out of this." Jacob said as he looked at Bella who gaped at him, stammering, an angry glare in her eyes before turning to look at her twin sister, asking in anger, "Did you put him up to this?"

"Actually, no. He won't even tell me the actual reason. But can you blame him, I mean really, sis.. You're kind of being insane. Okay, screw kind of. You're being a nutcase." Ara muttered as she edged out of the room, closing the door behind her, biting her lower lip. _'Right.. like this isn't completely awkward or anything.' _she thought to herself as she sighed and walked up the stairs, into the bedroom, flopping across the bed, rolling her eyes in disgust as she tried to drown out their loud arguing downstairs.

She'd been looking through a Victoria's Secret catalog when the door burst open and Jacob walked in, fists clenched as he flopped onto her bed. She looked up and then asked, "What was that about?"

"If she doesn't stop being a bitch towards you, technically, I don't have to do anything.. That treaty she keeps holding over everyone's head will be considered broken." Jacob said as he looked at Ara who nodded, a completely and totally confused expression on her face as she said blankly, "Uh huh.. And?"

"And I'm sick of seeing her make you angry or make you cry, push you like she does." Jacob admitted, shuffling his feet, raking his hand through his hair as he stood, paced in front of her. He'd made the decision to tell her, but he wasn't sure how she'd take it.

"Jacob, trust me, I'm fine." Ara said quietly as she looked at him, he shook his head, biting the edge of his thumb as his stomach churned nervously. "There's something that we've both been making a really, really concentrated effort to avoid, I've noticed, since we've been able to hear each other's thoughts.. You know what I am, you know pretty much all the legends about the shapeshifters." Jacob said as Ara stopped him and then said quietly, "Yeah, but.." with her voice trailing off when he held a finger to her lips and said quietly, "Just let me get this out, okay? Because I know that even though you haven't ever mentioned it, or how much it actually does scare you, especially given how close we've been getting lately.."

The radio began to play Come As You Are and she hummed along as she tried to avoid hearing what she was afraid was about to come out of his mouth. He was right, they had been getting closer lately, even though she'd tried her damndest to avoid letting him that close. "Look, I get it.. When it happens, Jacob, I'll be okay.. If that's what you're worried about.." her voice trailed off at the end and she looked down, sighed.

Jacob chuckled and then said "Actually, Ara.. it has already happened.. Come on, think about things lately, especially between us.." as he tilted her chin up, made her look at him. She blinked and then said quietly, "Huh?" mostly in shock than anything else at the moment. She flopped down onto the bed, needing to breathe or something.

"Are you okay?" he asked in concern as he reached out, turned down Nirvana for a moment and looked at her, waiting on her to either process and run like hell, or process and be alright.. It seemed like it took forever for either thing to happen.

"Jacob, are you saying..." Ara asked quietly, looking over at him as she took a few deep breaths and finished in a rush, "That you imprinted on me? Because I mean I think that's what you're saying." while studying him intently, twisting a strand of hair around her fingertips, shocked still.

He nodded and then said quietly, "Yeah.. It happened when I ran into you at the airport.. But I've always actually been in love with you." looking at her, still waiting on her to react in some way. She stood and paced a few moments, then stopped to look at him and managed a smile as she said " You're not mistaken.. Right?", walking towards him slowly. He shook his head and then said calmly, "Nope."

"Just answer one thing.." she asked, biting her lower lip, looking at him as she stood in front of him, nervously fumbling with her hair, twisting it around her finger, trying to muster up the courage needed to say what she was going to ask next because that'd help her decide if she could actually let her guard down, or at least try to.

"What do you wanna know?" he asked, chuckling at her nervous habits. He'd forgotten how cute they actually were. He cleared his throat and she looked up and asked quietly, "If you could have chosen... Would you have chosen it to happen this way? I mean I'm just curious.."

He thought it over a moment and then nodding he said quietly, "Honestly? Yeah, I would have. I used to think about it sometimes when my dad told those legends to us when we were all kids. Before I found out they were all real, of course."

She bit her lower lip and looked up at him and he leaned in and kissing her said quietly, "Yes, Ara, I wanted it to be you.. I mean I hoped you'd move back here to live with Charlie sooner or later so it would have happened when I first started going through all this."

She nodded and said quietly, "So what you said just now.. About the treaty.. Is that why?" as she looked up at him from where she sat in his lap. He nodded and said with a slight smirk, "Yeah, technically, we don't have to help her. Sam did a little digging of his own and found this old tribal law or something, told me to tell her about it.. Said you'd been through more than enough and for once, I actually agree with him."

She nodded and said quietly, "So, how furious was she?"

"Oh, she's pissed, but she's going to leave you alone.. At least that's what she says. She said it just before she stormed out. Did you not hear any of the argument?" Jacob asked as he tweaked her nose playfully. She gave him a slight glare, a playful one as she pointed to the headphones lying on the desk and said "Not with those on."

Jacob chuckled and then said "Ahh.. so you have to wear those a lot with her around.." as she nodded and said with a casual eye roll, "You have no idea." while leaning into him cautiously. Jacob smiled and looped his arms around her to keep her from sliding off his lap as he said "Having said all that.. I'm not gonna rush you into anything, okay? I get what you just got out of and I know it takes time. And we have all the time in the world." while kissing her forehead.

The door opened and Charlie coughed as Jacob and Ara burst into laughter. Charlie spoke up and said "I was gonna ask if you two wanted anything from the diner.. I'm going to grab something with a few of the guys from the station, discuss the attacks."

Ara bit her lower lip and then said with a slight smile, "Nah.. I'll make something if I get hungry. I hope you guys catch whoever is behind all this soon." with her father nodding and saying calmly, "We will.. I have a few theories thanks to some things your sister admitted when we had our little talk a few nights ago while you were at Jacobs. You two can.. I didn't mean to interrupt." he muttered, his hand in his hair, the situation awkward, but not entirely in a bad way.

He'd always liked Jacob, and Ara had always been closer to Jacob than she actually realized, he could just sort of tell. She'd been smiling a lot more lately, she'd been doing a lot better lately, she didn't spend all her time feeling guilty, trying to build walls high enough to keep everyone out.

"Daaad.." Ara muttered, her face turning bright red as Jacob chuckled and muttered quietly, "That wasn't awkward either, huh?"

"Not at all." she laughed as she playfully glared at him, realized that he had heard her thoughts while he was downstairs giving Bella a few cold hard facts, and she was up here, trying not to hear their argument, trying not to worry about Jacob letting Bella get to him and probably hurt him again.

"Yeah, I heard you." he laughed a little as she said "So... I'm guessing this is why all your friends the other night were giving me strange looks?"

"Pretty much.. I mean Leah, though, she's wary of anyone, especially if they know or are related to Bella. She kinda hates your sister."

"Yeah, I sort of got that when I did talk to her a little the other night. And she thought I'd be like her, I'm guessing?" Ara asked as Jacob nodded and then said "But she admitted she might actually be wrong."

"She's protective of you.. I like that about her.. I don't have to worry when you're out there patrolling." Ara admitted quietly as she got lost in his eyes. Jacob nodded and then said with a smile, "I really wasn't expecting this to happen, especially this way."

Ara shrugged and then said quietly, "Isn't this better though, I mean at least we know it's real.. Not saying any of it will be easy, especially with my sister involved, but.." as she looked at him. Jacob looked at her and nodding said "Yeah, I know. We'll deal with her later though.. Right now, I actually am kinda hungry.. Do you maybe want to go get food?"

"Actually, Jacob, I can make something.. We can just sort of hibernate. Enjoy the silence.. Because if I know my twin, it won't last long."

The phone rang and she paled as she looked at the caller id. "Who was it?" Jacob asked as he looked at her. She grumbled and said quietly, "And if vampires and my needy sister weren't enough problems.. Now Ben is probably going to show up here and create all new problems. I was afraid of this. Damn it, I knew that when I got out, I didn't actually get away."

"Ara.. Nothing is going to happen to you, okay?" Jacob said as he reached for the phone, taking it from her as he looked at the number, making a mental note of it for later. "Does he call you a lot?"

"Actually, no.. But if he is now, then it means he knows where I am, and trust me.. That's not a good thing." Ara said as she bit her lower lip, grumbling. She'd finally gotten everything she really wanted, her life was beginning to sort itself out.

"Ara, it's going to be okay. Look, I'm not letting anything happen to you." Jacob said as she nodded and said quietly, "And I'm not letting anything happen to you either." with the two of them looking at each other silently. He grumbled as he glared at the phone and then muttered quietly, "If he shows up here, I'll handle him.. Okay?"

"It's my mess."

"Not really, no.. You're mine, therefore, Ara, it makes this my mess too." Jacob said as he held her against him then said "Let's just go get a pizza, get out of here for a while." as she nodded in agreement. They'd gotten it all out in the open and now, apparently, the complications were going to bum rush them.

* * *

Notes:

Wow! Only 10 chapters in and already I have 8 reviews, 12 favorites and 22 follows. You guys are totally amazing, I didn't think to be honest, that the story would go over that well, considering I openly admit to hating the lead female canon character.

Hope you guys like the story so far, and I pray to God I'm at least doing a halfway decent job at writing the different characters I write into the story as it goes. Love you all!


	13. complications in the form of ex

"We are not watching this." Jacob stated as Ara shifted her gaze and made begging eyes, jumping around on the couch on her knees a little. Jacob stared a moment and then said with a smirk, "Cute... But still no."

"But I sat through that horror movie." Ara said as Jacob sighed and said with a smile, "Fine.." while pulling her into his lap. The rest of the pack was at a meeting at the Cullens, again, he was blowing it off, spending time with Ara. And he had the feeling that Bella was most definitely not happy with this either, but he really didn't care. If she wanted their help, she really couldn't say or do anything about it.

He wasn't leaving her, not knowing her ex might be heading towards them with the intention to do God only knows what when he got to town. Jacob wasn't willing to risk her safety like that.

"What's this show called anyway?" Jacob asked as Ara took a few handfuls of popcorn from the bowl and moved her sleeping niece to the other side of her lap as she said "Dancing with the Stars. And it's not so bad, really. It's kinda fun to watch."

"Not really, babe, but.. If you want to, we will." he said with a smile as he leaned her against him, digging into the bowl of popcorn on their laps, just content to be here with her, not there with the others. His cell phone vibrated and he read the text that Embry sent, laughing a little as he leaned in to kiss Ara and mutter "Yeah, she's mad. Embry said it's killing her cause she can't just come over here and start a riot about me not going tonight."

"If you need to go, Jacob, then go. I'll be fine, really. I mean Dad has a gun in here somewhere, I have all his numbers, I have your number.. I'm not some fragile little thing, and anyway, this is my mess. I'm not gonna be like my sister and use my man as a cover." Ara muttered as Jacob put his hands on her cheeks and looking at her said quietly, "I know. But I'm not going to leave you here alone, either."

She nodded and then he added, "Besides.. Only back here as a favor to Sam, and for you.. Not back here because she needs me or wants my help. If she wanted my help, she'd have taken my advice a few years ago before she let herself go and marry the guy." quietly. Ara nodded and said quietly, "I just hate that Renesmee's life is in danger because of all this. I wish there was something I could do to make sure she didn't get hurt and nobody came after her ever again."

"Me too.. I mean she's a kid. She doesn't deserve all this staring her in the face." Jacob said as he watched Ara with Renesmee, smiling to himself. One day, she'd make a really great mother. He hated that she'd lost her chance to be a mother once already, but maybe when the time was right..

The thought had him coughing, licking his lips as he looked down at her, watched her watching the tv again now, in his arms.

"She's out like a light.. I do have an idea.." Ara muttered as she moved to sit in his lap, looked up at him. He smiled and asked, "What's that?"

"Well, it's not actually my idea.. Edward suggested that if things got too bad, if things went the wrong way after all this, because apparently Alice has seen about 3 ways this ends and only one has been good.. He wants me to take Renesmee and go somewhere for a while.. And I don't.."

"You don't want to go by yourself." Jacob mused as he nodded and said "Yeah.. I'm in.. But only because it's you. And it's to help a little girl who doesn't deserve this shit." as he kissed her and muttered quietly, "You are amazing."

"I'm not amazing. I just don't want her growing up like I did.. I mean we both know that Bella's selfish ways messed up my life.. It was partially my fault because I kept letting it happen, but just.. I don't want Renesmee in danger because of how her mother is, and how Bella's choices wound up affecting them."

Jacob nodded and then asked, "When did Edward ask you this?"

"Earlier today when he dropped off Renesmee. He talked to me a little bit, asked me if there were anything he could do about the Ben situation.. Said he owed you and my dad that much and I was sorta family to him now or something. I told him no, of course. Like I keep saying. I made this mess, I'll fix it."

"Not if I fix it first." Jacob said as he asked, "Let me guess.. Edward still creeps you out."

"The whole concept of what they are does.. I mean with Ness, it's not creepy, she's half human too.. But the others, it's just scary. I mean at any given moment, one of them could snap.. Ness has living organs, she has blood.. What if they snapped and like, ate her..."

Jacob nodded and said "Carlisle's controlled, they're all fairly well controlled."

"But Jasper.. He almost lost his shit when Bella got a papercut, remember? That could happen again with any of them, my sister included.." Ara muttered as she sighed and said "Enough talking about it. This is her life, not mine. Just because it makes no actual sense to me.. " turning her attention back to the show. Jacob hugged her and said quietly, "It won't be our concern anymore just as soon as this is over and they're all moved safely away. But if it comes down to the worst, yeah.. I'll go with you. I'd go anywhere with you."

Ara nodded and hugged against him. The phone in the house rang and she heard the drunken voice of her ex and groaned while swearing. He'd been stepping up his calls lately, they'd been more threatening and scary as of late. He sounded like he was losing his grip on reality completely.

"I got it." Jacob said as he stood, took the phone into another room and said "Whoever this is.. If you're half as brave as you keep pretending to be, why don't you come on and find me, face to face."

Ara coughed from the doorway and hissed, "Are you fuckin nuts, Jacob? Just call my dad. The guy is losing his mind.. You don't need to antagonize him." while looking at Jacob in concern.

The male caller said calmly, "Let me talk to her.. Or better yet, just tell her that soon she's gonna regret ever leaving me, and she's gonna damn sure regret putting me in the ICU before she ran home to daddy. Enjoy her while you got her, bud, because this time, there ain't gonna be a damn thing left when I'm done with her. Nobody leaves me until I say it's done. Nobody."

Jacob chuckled and said calmly, "Ben.. That's your name, right? Why don't you come on and find me, say that to my face. We'll find out who the real man is when I'm done with you." before hanging up. Ara studied him a moment and then said quietly, "You shouldn't have done that.. You should have let it ring, I coulda told my dad about it when he came in tonight, Jacob.. Ben just.. He doesn't sound like he's even remotely sane right now. Whatever's been wrong with him all along, it's getting worse.. And I don't want you getting hurt."

He looked at her and then said calmly, "Have you forgotten, Ara, I happen to turn into a giant wolf when I'm furious? So yeah, he might be mental.. But I can rip him to shreds if he makes me angry enough. And I will if he even thinks about coming near you again."

"I'm calling my dad though. I'm not leaving him in the dark about this." Ara muttered as she walked into the den with a phone in her hand, dialing her father's number. She told him what'd just happened for the 3rd time that week alone, and he told her that if her ex were stupid enough to show up, that he'd make sure her ex was dealt with. He added also, "For now.. When I work, you're with Jacob and the guys at the res.. If you work nights, I'll drop you off, Jacob will pick you up. Are we clear?"

"Yes sir." Ara muttered as she bit her lower lip. She took a few deep breaths and then lightly punched a wall. She'd come home to be safe, not be stalked and scared or put her loved ones and the man she loved in danger.. Maybe she should just run again, she mused to herself as she heard Jacob from behind her as his arms slipped around her waist, "If you run, Ara.. I'll just follow you. Would you stop worrying about everyone else and let us keep you safe?"

"But it's nobody's fault but mine that I got into this even. I shouldn't expect you guys to keep cleaning up my messes.. I mean I'm not her, Jacob, it's not in me to hide behind other people."

"I know, Ara, but sometimes you have to let other people help you." Jacob said as he kissed her neck and then said "Are you okay now?"

"Mhmm.. Just still jittery as all fuck.. Every time I think things are gonna be okay again, damn it, he does this. It used to suck me right back in, because I didn't want him hurting anyone else because of me.. this time, I'm just sick of it.. I wanna murder him, especially after he caused.." she muttered, resting her head against his chest as he nodded and said quietly, "I know, trust me."

She sighed and then said quietly, "He just... He took everything.." as Jacob nodded and said quietly, "No, he didn't. You're out and you're starting to be alright again. So he's not winning. And he won't. Trust me." while pulling her into a kiss. She sighed and then said quietly, "Sorry."

"Why?"

"Because this is sort of irritating, it has to be." Ara muttered as he said "Actually, it's not. It's only irritating when you start getting ideas like runnin to keep everyone else safe. That'll only wind up blowing up in your own face." as he carried her into the living room, turning on the television again. He held her in his arms and wondered to himself when in the hell exactly things would finally calm down.

Because he couldn't wait for it to happen, to be able to enjoy finally having the girl he wanted.

* * *

Notes:

Wow! Only 10 chapters in and already I have 9 reviews, 15 favorites and 25 follows. You guys are totally you guys like the story so far, and I pray to God I'm at least doing a halfway decent job at writing the different characters I write into the story as it goes. Love you all!


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